After the excitement of having your application accepted and months of looking forward to this new chapter in your life, you’re finally settling into your new life on the college campus and getting familiar with all the new changes that come with being a college student. College can be some of the best years of your life and is often one of the best opportunities to make new friends for life, but it’s important to put your safety first while you are here. Not everybody that you meet will be honest nor will they have your best interests in mind.
Choose Your College Wisely
If you are still in the process of applying to college, then make sure that safety is on your priority list when considering where you would like to study. Sure, the range of programs and facilities on offer are important, but you also want to feel safe where you are living or studying, so check out crime rates and look at a list of the safest college campuses in America by Nuwber to get some good ideas on where to attend and what to look out for.
Stay Alert
Technology can be distracting whether you’re listening to a podcast in your Airpods as you’re walking to classes or getting some homework done on your laptop in a communal area. But once you’re in that tech world, it’s all too easy to become very distracted from everything else that is going on around you, which can put you at a higher risk of being a target of crime. If you’re wearing headphones, keep the volume down so that you can stay alert to what’s going on around you at all times.
Get Familiar With the Campus
Knowing where to go and who to ask for help in the event of an emergency is something that every college student should become familiar with in the first few days of being on campus. There is nothing wrong with taking some time to speak to campus security to ask them for advice on what you should do if you ever find yourself in a serious situation or need help; they will usually be more than happy to direct you to where you can find the emergency areas on campus and how to contact them if you need them.
Lock Your Doors
Student accommodation is often shared with hundreds of different students and this can make it a fun and social experience, but it can also increase the risk of theft. Since this is going to be your home and where you might be keeping expensive devices like your laptop and your smartphone, make sure that the door to your room is always locked when you are not inside it and that your flat or house is locked too. If you’re sharing accommodation with students that you don’t know well, consider getting a safe for the room where you can place your valuables for additional peace of mind.
Get to Know Your Peers
College is a time where you will be meeting a lot of new people, and some of them might be more trustworthy than others. Sticking to groups of people around campus, especially at night, will help you to stay safe and knowing that you have friends to contact if you need help will provide you with more peace of mind.