Change is daunting for almost anyone. When you are an 18 year old from a small island – someone whose biggest challenges so far have been catching the right bus, remembering a doctor’s appointment or following your homework schedule – daunting can quickly escalate to frightening.

Nearly all the adults around me – the real adults, not like me by age, but by life experience – insist that university will be ‘the best years of your life’. Maybe they’re right; I hope so, as someone who is about to start this new journey. But I know from speaking with friends that for all of us preparation is filled with unease – inevitably, I suppose, as this is a big moment, about to be faced with scarcely more than a chaotically-packed suitcase, a booking in a small room in an unfamiliar town, and a grandmother’s unrelenting advice about what to do to stay out of trouble. No, Gran, I do not need to be reminded four times a week about the risks of meningitis.

Only yesterday, we were still children. Going away feels like truly stepping into adulthood, but preparing for self-reliance has been a quiet reminder that there is far more to it than I realised when turning 18 a few months ago. Last week, I went shopping with my mum, just to buy some bedding for my room at university. A simple task? Of course not. There was duvet thickness, the difference between a mattress topper and a mattress protector, which materials would be more comfortable, and budgeting because that, too, is on me now. At the end, I was reminded that this adulthood business suddenly upon us requires thinking about every small decision, because for the first time there is nobody else who can make them for you.

I thought I was reasonably organised and then faced the various administrative tasks that university requires even before arrival. It took me two hours to fill in an online registration form which I had assumed could be done in 10 minutes. Apparently, access to my timetable of lectures would be the prized possession of every sophisticated hacker, and the only logical defence is a password requiring 14 letters, three symbols, two numbers, a hieroglyph and blood sacrifice.

Of course, separation is the most obvious challenge students face when leaving the island. Even the more independent of us have been reliant on parents, but even the most supportive parents are suddenly going to be advising and guiding rather than doing. And that advice and guidance will be at the other end of a phone, not downstairs in the kitchen. Friends who have always been a text message and a 10-minute cycle away are suddenly scattered hundreds of miles apart. Enter, to some extent to fill that space, flatmates, classmates and neighbours. These aren’t the mates you have grown up with who change your home screen when you leave your laptop open or steal your pen and put it in the sixth-form microwave. They’re adults with LinkedIn profiles, colour-coded calendars and apparently the kind of self-confidence which allows them to talk about ‘networking’ with a straight face. This doesn’t feel like me, though. Today alone I’ve watched three videos about how to use the washing machine. I’m not even sure I can get myself into the right lecture room at the right time. Thankfully, I can cook every flavour of Pot Noodle, so I feel like I’ve cleared at least the first hurdle towards authentic student life.

The weight of so many unknowns prompts certain gloomy questions: Will I find friends, actual friends, or will I spend the next few months awkwardly nodding at strangers whose names I barely know? Will I be able to cope with the academic challenges of a degree at a university which not that long ago I would have assumed was out of reach? Will I be the one whose stupidity sets the flats on fire? Will I run out of food or money, or clothes if I can’t learn how to stop shrinking them in the wash? All this while I know I will be missing home and all its old certainties.

But then I have a whole load of other thoughts. Nearly all the other students may face similar challenges; some perhaps more. Surely they, too, will miss home, burn food, muck up essays, and have awkward moments around strangers. Surely they, too, must be worried university will be filled with people unlike them. Douglas Adams says ‘Don’t panic’ in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a book about the weirdness, unpredictability and excitement of life. He has other important things to say about growing up, but I prefer to remain naively optimistic and stick with just that one reassuring line.

I think I speak for all of us heading off when I say that our apprehension is dwarfed by excitement. University is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, educationally and socially. We will probably never again meet a more diverse range of new people in such a short space of time. We will have the chance to learn to live independently with thousands of others doing the same. We’re looking forward to studying subjects we’re passionate about with like-minded peers and skilled tutors, challenging our assumptions, learning fresh perspectives, forming new opinions. It feels like it will play a big part in shaping the person I am going to become.

Of course, we arrive at university partly shaped already. Over the past few weeks, I have thought quite a lot about how much others have done, in some cases sacrificed, to help make my next adventure possible. Parents and grandparents who have encouraged and supported me more than I can put into words and also fussed over little things which could otherwise have tripped me up. Teachers who have cared and inspired and pushed because they knew that extra test paper or last bit of revision would make the difference. Workmates at my holiday and weekend job who have helped me grow up. Friends I don’t want to leave. Thinking of all of them, I feel a little melancholy and very thankful.

At this time, on the brink of this change, every adult I know is full of more advice than I can possibly remember. Thank you, but sometimes all we want to hear is ‘I’m sure you’ll love uni but, if you don’t, home is always yours to return to’. We don’t, however, need to be reminded to stay away from dodgy-looking parts of town – thanks, mum and dad, I’ll add that to my to-do list right under ‘take chips out of the box before putting them in the oven’. I won’t regret leaving all that kind of advice behind, though admittedly soon I may regret not taking more notice of some of it.

Whether the right word is daunting or frightening, good luck to all who are about to do this.

https://guernseypress.com/opinion/2025/09/22/josh-fallaize-the-best-years-of-your-life