The first six weeks: a study system that survives the semester
Short answer
How to start university
Set up four things in your first six weeks and the rest of the semester becomes manageable: one note system you actually use, a reading method that produces notes rather than highlights, a reference manager started before your first essay rather than during it, and a calendar containing every assessment deadline in the module handbooks. Almost all first-semester stress comes from doing these in week ten instead of week two.
Week one: read the handbooks, not the reading lists
Every module publishes a handbook containing the assessment weighting, the deadlines, the marking criteria and the referencing style. Most students never open it.
Read all of them in one sitting and put every deadline into one calendar. You will immediately find the two or three weeks where three modules collide, and you can plan around them while planning is still possible.
Week two: pick a note system and stop shopping
The specific system matters far less than committing to one. Students lose entire terms to trying a new app every fortnight.
The only real requirement is that notes are searchable and in one place. Paper is fine if you photograph it. What does not work is notes scattered across a laptop, three apps and the margins of printouts.
- One place for lecture notes, organised by module and date.
- One place for reading notes, organised by source — not by week, because you will want them by source when you write.
- A running question list per module. The things you did not understand are what you revise from.
Week three: learn to read like an academic
You will be set more reading than anyone can read fully. This is intentional and is not a mistake in the reading list.
Read strategically: abstract, introduction, conclusion, then the section that answers the question you brought to it. Read the methods only if you need to judge whether the findings hold. Highlighting is not reading — if you produce no notes, you have not read it.
Week four: start a reference manager before you need it
The single highest-return habit in a degree. Zotero is free, and adding a source takes seconds when you read it and half an hour when you are reconstructing it at midnight before submission.
Save every source as you encounter it, including ones you might not use. Recovering a half-remembered paper you read in week three is the most avoidable time loss in undergraduate study.
Week five: decode your first assignment early
Read the assignment brief and the marking criteria in the week it is set, not the week before it is due. The task verb tells you what kind of answer is wanted — 'evaluate' and 'describe' are different assignments, and answering the wrong one caps your mark regardless of quality.
Write the question at the top of a page and note what a marker would need to see to award each criterion. That page becomes your plan.
Week six: find out how you are actually assessed
Ask a tutor for an example of work in the top band, or find the exemplars your department publishes. Most do, and most students never look.
Reading one distinction-level answer teaches you more about the standard than a term of general advice, including this page.
The two deadlines nobody warns you about
First, extenuating-circumstances applications almost always have their own deadline, often before the assignment is due. If something goes wrong, apply immediately rather than after you have missed the submission.
Second, module changes usually close in the first two or three weeks. If a module is clearly wrong for you, that window is short and it does not reopen.
Frequently asked questions
- What should I do in my first week at university?
- Read every module handbook and put all assessment deadlines into one calendar. It takes an afternoon and it prevents most of the crises that hit in weeks nine to twelve, when three deadlines land in the same fortnight.
- How much reading should I actually do?
- You will be set more than anyone can read fully; that is deliberate. Read the abstract, introduction and conclusion of most items, and read deeply only what bears directly on the question you are answering.
- Do I really need a reference manager?
- It is the highest-return habit available to you. Zotero is free, adding a source takes seconds at the time of reading, and reconstructing citations from memory the night before submission is where students most reliably lose referencing marks.
- What is the biggest first-year mistake?
- Not reading the marking criteria. Students write a good answer to a question that was not asked, because they never checked what the task verb required or how the marks were distributed.
Keep reading
Related guides
Essay structure: how to build an argument
A university essay is built on an arguable thesis statement, supported by paragraphs that each advance one claim through a topic sentence, evidence, analysis and a link.
The referencing mistakes that cost the most marks
The four referencing errors that cost the most marks are: paraphrased ideas with no citation, in-text citations that do not match the reference list, mixing Harvard variants within one document, and citing sources you have not read.
Which Harvard does your university actually use?
There is no single Harvard style.