“Is first year actually difficult?”
Depends what you find difficult. Ask someone who did your course, at your university, two years ago.
For students with a UK offer
You got the offer.Now for everything nobody tells you.
AcademyMentor puts you in touch with one person who arrived in the UK not long ago, on a course like yours, and remembers exactly what you are about to walk into.
Free · Run by volunteers · Matched by a person
01 — The gap
Some questions don't have a search result.
The visa checklist is online. The reading list is online. What is not online is whether the halls ten minutes from campus are worth the extra two hundred a month, or what the first three weeks are like when you do not know anybody yet.
Those answers exist. They are just held by people who made the same move a year or two before you.
“How much do students really spend?”
Not the figure on the university website. The one that includes the first month, when everything costs money at once.
“What would you do differently?”
The question that only works on someone who has already done it.
02 — How it works
Three steps, and a person at the middle of them.
01
Tell us where you are going
Your offer, your course, and the parts you are least sure about. It takes about ten minutes and you can save it half-finished.
02
A person reads it
Not an algorithm. Someone on our team reads what you wrote and looks for a mentor who actually fits — the right city, the right kind of course, the right worries.
03
You start talking
One mentor, yours, for as long as it is useful. You message them through AcademyMentor whenever a question comes up.
03 — The journey
It is longer than the flight.
A mentor is useful at every point on this line, not only the day you land. Most students stay in touch well past the first term.
01
Offer
The letter arrives. The questions start.
02
Prepare
Visa, money, what to pack, what to sort first.
03
Connect
You are matched with someone who has done it.
04
Arrive
The first week, and everything nobody warned you about.
05
Settle
Coursework, friends, a routine that works.
06
Grow
Societies, placements, what comes after.
04 — Fair game
Nothing is too small to ask.
Before you fly
- Visa timing and paperwork
- What to pack, what to buy there
- Opening a bank account
Somewhere to live
- Halls or private
- What the extra rent buys you
- Signing a contract from abroad
The first month
- Registration and admin
- Getting a phone and a doctor
- The week nobody warns you about
Money, honestly
- What a month really costs
- Working while you study
- Funding and hardship support
Coursework
- How marking differs from home
- Reading lists and deadlines
- Asking for help without losing face
The rest of it
- Societies worth the time
- Placements and internships
- What employers here look for
Your mentor
@ayla.k
Example
You · 20:41
My accommodation deposit is due before I get my visa decision. Is that normal, or am I being rushed?
@ayla.k · 21:02
Normal, and it caught me out too. Check the contract for a visa-refusal clause — most student housing has one, and it means the deposit comes back if the visa is refused. Ask them to confirm it in writing before you pay anything.
You · 21:09
I would not have known to ask for that.
@ayla.k · 21:14
Nobody does the first time. Send me the clause when they reply and I will read it with you.
05 — Talking to them
The questions that feel too small to ask.
Those are the ones that cost the most to get wrong. A deposit paid too early. A form signed without reading it. A week spent on something that takes an afternoon once somebody tells you how.
You ask your mentor here, and the whole thread stays in one place. No phone numbers to swap, nothing lost in an inbox, and nobody treating an obvious question as a stupid one.
It is free. No fee, no premium tier, nothing to upgrade.
One mentor at a time. You are somebody's only student, not a ticket in a queue.
Administrators can read your messages. We would rather say so here than bury it in a policy.
06 — The other side
You have already done the hard part once.
If you arrived in the UK for university in the last few years, you know things a student with an offer would pay for. An evening a month, one student, anonymously.
You got the offer.
Let's get you ready.
Find a mentor
Ten minutes · Save and come back