Study Skills Resources

Flying Start has been designed to help you understand what studying at university really means. As you will discover, university is quite different from school or college, but with help from your lecturers and tutors you will quickly adapt and learn how to study effectively and independently in your new environment.

Take your time to work through the four sections of this site. Each one introduces new concepts and provides practical advice to help you get the most out of your time at university.

Prepare for university and master academic skills essential for undergraduates studying in the UK. In Skills to Succeed at University, you will pick up top tips and first-hand advice on how to start and thrive at university from current students who came to the University of Leeds through different routes, such as after completing a BTEC, A-levels, or as mature students.

The 'How to Thrive' project aims to guide students through different university stages, starting with First Year. This guide covers potential challenges you may encounter in your first year at University, spanning from academic-related issues to social life and wellbeing. Created by students, they offer advice based on their own experiences to help you prepare, overcome, or find support to face and overcome these issues

The Student's Guide to the Hidden Curriculum is a resource aimed at new students starting university. Anticipating the sort of questions students might have as they start to navigate university life, the guide has been created to help explain some of the terminology and expressions they are likely to encounter and help them settle in at their chosen university.

Written by a past undergraduate student, this blog talks through the transition to University learning and gives you their top tips to help prepare you for your time at Leeds

For a lot of new students, adapting to University culture and the new ways of teaching and learning after more than a decade of school-based learning can be a shock to the system. To avoid there being any surprises when you start your course, we’ve outlined some of the changes you can expect when you start studying at University level for the first time.

Your relationship with your Academic Personal Tutor is a very important one. This academic colleague from your School will work in partnership with you, helping you to maximise your success and to ensure you feel you belong as a member of the vibrant academic community here at Leeds.

We all have worries about University life— are we keeping up with our studies, have we done enough work? Is University right for me? It’s easy during these times to compare ourselves with others and feel that we’re not being the best version of ourselves.
If this is all feeling a bit familiar, here’s some things to do to get answers, help and advice.

Every large organisation has a lot of strange words and acronyms which it uses to describe its daily workings, and this is often referred to as "jargon". Encountering a lot of jargon can be confusing when you are new, so we've compiled this list of common terms you will read and hear during your time at University.