Undergraduate

1. Exercise
30 minutes of daily exercise is recommended. As exercising releases endorphins, it’s great for your mood and your overall wellbeing, plus it's a welcome break from sitting in lectures and seminars.

2. Drink water
Water is essential for good mental health. It can be easy to forget to drink water when you’re wrapped up in essay stress, but regularly drinking glasses of water improves concentration and decreases your stress levels by thoroughly hydrating you. Each time you sit down at your desk, make sure you have a glass of water to hand.

3. Sufficient sleep
Late night library sessions and TV series binging take their toll. When you’re overly tired, your concentration levels crash. It is important to regulate your sleep pattern – try to get at least seven hours of sleep a night, and to sleep and wake at the same time each day.

4. Break down your work
Do you have a difficult essay to write, a...

It’s certainly a surreal feeling. Being only 17 and watching all your friends apply for university but, instead, you’re submitting a job application to one of the biggest technology consultancy firms in the world. What makes it even more bizarre is the fact that it’s only for the year. It feels as though you are about to start climbing the stairs to your career but, as you go to place your foot on the first step, you hesitate – unsure whether you really want to commit to the ascent, or recoil to the safety of traditional higher education. At this point, however, it doesn’t feel real. You’ve merely submitted words on a page, the first step in a long selection process – one you feel you don’t have a hope in hell of surviving. Yet you complete all the tests and jump all the hurdles thrown your way. And you make it.

When you arrive on your first day, the apprehension you feel is immeasurable and, as you’ll be reminded time after time throughout the next 12 months, you’re a baby...

My name is Sam Silsby, and I am a trainee solicitor at BPE Solicitors LLP in Cheltenham. I chose law later in life, having had a successful 20-year career in the public and private sectors as a project manager and a commissioning manager. I always had an interest in law, particularly employment and HR related topics, as I had managed large teams and understood the challenges facing employers. When I realised that I had over half of my career remaining, I decided it was now or never and took the plunge! I had to complete a conversion course called a GDL to allow me to have the equivalent to a law degree before taking my Legal Practice Course (LPC).

I love the blend of having to understand and work out statute and case law, then having to package up advice in a commercial way with no ‘legalese’ to assist our clients to reach their goals. It is hard work, and excellent attention to detail is required, but the satisfaction...

Meningitis is a life-threatening disease that can affect anyone, but young people and students are at particularly high risk. A free MenACWY vaccine is available to first year students up to the age of 25 through their GP. This vaccine and knowing the symptoms of meningitis is the best protection against this devastating disease, which can resemble the flu or a hangover and so is often ignored until it’s too late.

The symptoms can include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle pain, stomach cramps and fever with cold hands and feet. Other symptoms include drowsiness, pale, blotchy skin, dislike of bright lights and a rash that doesn’t fade under pressure.

Students in shared accommodation and those travelling and at festivals are particularly vulnerable, and so Meningitis Now is calling on all eligible young people to get vaccinated before heading off to uni or as early as...