Post contributed by Community Facilitator Rad 
Moving into a new place is one of the most exciting things about starting uni, but it is also quite a monumental task!
But worry not – here at King’s ResiLife we have compiled a comprehensive list of tips and tricks you can use to avoid any hassle and settle into your new home as quickly as possible. It’s a by-product of our collective experience of living in student halls, so you know that these recommendations are worth a try!
Contributed by Konstantinos, former 3rd year medical student
My name is Kostas, I am a medical student at King’s. 2018 was the year I started my own business called Student Essentials.
Don’t get too excited it doesn’t involve machine learning or artificial intelligence. It is a super simple business, yet it offers great convenience to our customers. We deliver all the essentials (like duvets, pillows, towels, kitchen items) to students when they arrive at their accommodation. It saves them time and money.
Post contributed by Lauren Hammond, Health & Fitness Coach, King’s Sport
If 2020 has taught us one thing, it’s that connecting with our friends and family are key to maintaining a happy mind!
With limited activities currently being allowed in the UK, it’s time to get creative with building new friendships and maintaining your old ones.
Here are just a few ideas for how to safely socialise:
Post contributed by Helen Kursten-Holmes, Positive Peer Supervisor
The Positive Peers are a student-led volunteer group that sits within KCLSU Wellbeing. We aim to enhance the personal and collective wellbeing of King’s College London students by giving evidence-based information to improve student mental health and wellbeing, sharing experiences and connecting each other with helpful resources. We organise a variety of interactive events and workshops throughout the year that all students can participate in. Through our projects and events, we seek to promote, support and celebrate the wellbeing of students at King’s and to create a healthier and happier community. The Positive Peers team is divided into 3 main strands, each led by Positive Peer Supervisors. The strands comprise of Peer Run-Support, Peer Health Education, and Engagement and Online Support.
The Peer-Run Support strand delivers one-to-one and group support for students experiencing mental health difficulties. This includes Positive Minds, a 4-week course to support students experiencing low mood and mild depression. We will be launching this course in November, so if you’re feeling a bit low and finding university difficult, you can attend our peer support group Positive Minds or reach out for a one-to-one chat with us. Alongside this, we also offer wellbeing checks where we interact with new students to support their transition to university and to highlight KCLSU Wellbeing resources and other essential services. During Welcome 2020, the Positive Peers spoke to over 100 new King’s students in our one-to-one virtual King’s Check-in sessions. These sessions were offered to new students to make sure that they had everything they needed to get started and thrive at King’s.
The Peer Health Education strand leads on education and outreach through delivering workshops and facilitating initiatives about mental health and wellbeing, online, on campus, in residence halls, and for specific student groups. This strand’s activities include wellbeing checks, Cooking and Conversation, which is a cooking workshop in partnership with King’s Residences where students learn a new healthy recipe while getting to know other students, and our 3 part programme, Thrive. This 3 week course gives students the support to learn strategies that can promote positive wellbeing and equips them with the tools and activities that can be included in their daily routine so that they can flourish. Thrive is one of our most popular courses and in light of the pandemic, we have been delivering it virtually. To join our next Thrive programme starting in November, sign up for it using our Eventbrite page.
The Engagement and Online Support strand runs the team’s digital outreach by creating accessible communications for all students (including those not on campus) to improve their wellbeing and promote the team’s activities. The digital team also creates the monthly Positive Peers newsletter, detailing our recent news and campaigns, upcoming events and wellbeing tips. You can read our October newsletter by clicking here. The team also writes blog posts for the KCLSU website and each blog post delves into a variety of wellbeing topics, tips and themes, our most recent one is Settling in at University. In addition to this, we have a podcast and lots of content on social media to help boost wellbeing and increase awareness of mental health and wellbeing events and concepts. For Wellbeing Week (2nd November – 6th November), we are organising a Positive Peers Instagram takeover of Project X’s Instagram and collaborating with Big Pitch Energy on a competition that will be open to all King’s students, staff and alumni, where you can win £50 and be featured on our newsletter. So, make sure you keep an eye out on our socials for more information about how you can take part!
We hope to see you at our upcoming events and if you have any questions, our inbox and social media are always open so feel free to get in touch.
Visit our website: www.kclsu.org/help/wellbeing/positivepeers
Email us: positivepeers@kcl.ac.uk
Connect with us on social media:
Vegan Alternative Links:
Step 1: Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl.
Step 2: Make a well in the centre and add the egg, milk and oil. Use a whisk or a spatula to beat until combined.
Step 3: Spoon into a 400ml mug or whatever size is available to you this size I have just found works best.
Step 4: Spoon the Nutella into the centre. Microwave 70 seconds or until risen.
Top with double cream or ice-cream and dress with some fruits!
Vegan Brownies Recipe – Nora Cooks
Ingredients
Method
Cheesecake Brownies
Ingredients
Method
Post contributed by Jasmin, Welfare Lead
I’m Jasmin, and I’m one of the Residence Welfare Leads here at King’s. Members of our team live on-site at each residence to provide welfare support for our student community. Moving into residences is a big change, even without some of the additional stresses we are facing this year, and it’s totally normal to be feeling worried or overwhelmed. Your wellbeing is really important and so we thought we’d share a bit about self-care!
It can be really easy to get lost in buzzwords, so we’ll keep it simple here. Self-care is anything you consciously do to promote your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.
Self-care is a personal thing and it looks different for everyone! It doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming and regularly choosing an activity that takes 10 minutes or less can make a real difference. Action For Happiness have some great tips on their #SelfCareSeptember daily action calendar.
We’ve also listed a few ideas below, and you can check out the KCLSU Wellbeing Hub for activities, events and resources around King’s to boost wellbeing all year round.
We’re a group of friendly, trained volunteers who live in the King’s Residences to support with student welfare.
Our duty hours are between 8PM – 8AM on weekdays and 24 hours on the weekend. We can be reached over text, phone or email and you can find our contact details around the residence as well as on our webpages here.
Post contributed by Nkasi Stoll, 1st year PhD student, Department of Psychological Medicine
Black Students Talk is a new virtual weekly peer wellbeing support group run by us, for us.
Topic: Black Students Talk (BST)
When: Every Thursday, 3pm-5pm
Link: https://zoom.us/j/98862363294?pwd=anJRZzBLTkxjQXhpYmNvVFVnREtnUT09
Meeting ID: 988 6236 3294
Password: BPT20
What is Black Students Talk (BST)?
BST is a peer support group that provides safe, supportive and therapeutic spaces for black* students to meet, share, learn, and manage our mental health & wellbeing at university.
BST online sessions are held weekly via Zoom. Each weekly session from 3PM-5PM and lasts 2 hours.
Why does BST exist?
As university students we experience complex academic, psychological, social, emotional and financial pressures. Black* students face specific pressures that often affect our mental health and therefore, our university experience and outcome.
BST x KCL was set up by Nkasi Stoll (Postgraduate student at King’s College London, IoPPN) and Yannick Yalipende (Postgraduate student at University of Bristol).
Nkasi and Yannick worked with the IoPPN Diversity and Inclusion team to set up this group due to their own experiences with depression and anxiety whilst studying at university.
What do Black Students Talk (BST) sessions offer?
Who is Black Students Talk (BST) for?
University students at King’s College London who identify as “black*” (African, Caribbean, Mixed heritage).
How do I attend the Black Students Talk (BST) sessions?
BST sessions are being held virtually. No need to sign up in advance. On Thursday at 3pm click the zoom link and enter the meeting ID and password (provided at the top of this email) to join the group. Email us on: hello@blackpeopletalk.co.uk. Find us on Twitter: @yyalipende & @NkasiStoll
Not being able to see friends and family can be hard at times like this, but now the Government has set these new rules in place we are going to have to be creative with how we connect with them online.
We’ve been doing our research and have come up with some different ways to see your friends/family as well as making it a bit more fun and interactive…
Google Hangouts/ Zoom
You may have seen others using tools like these to video call their friends and family. The beauty of this is that you can have multiple people on there at a time, so forget having to pass the phone round to family members, have a big group video call instead!
Quiz night from home
Considering we are all self-isolating at home all day, there may not be much to catch up about, so why not get creative and create a quiz. There are hundreds of quizzes online you could use or you could make your own, make it personal to whoever you are quizzing. Take turns to be the quizmaster and make it a weekly thing!
Netflix party
If you miss chilling with your housemates watching movies, or planned to watch a new series together but had to move back home to self-isolate, then wait no longer – Netflix Party has arrived. Netflix Party synchronizes video playback and adds a group chat alongside – it’s like you’ve never been apart!
Skribbl.io
If you fancy something different to a quiz or want to mix it up a bit, try yourselves at Skribbl.io. It’s almost like an only Pictionary but online, test your online drawings skills and compete against your friends, the perfect game if you need a laugh.
Jackbox
You may have already played this when you were all together, but it’s still just as easy to play it over video call. Follow this simple video to set up Jackbox via Zoom and it’ll have you playing for hours, if you need something to help get you through the days this is definitely worth a go.
As we are all self-isolating, we all have a lot of time on our hands, if you want the time to pass a lot quicker, then planning activities you can do each day will have you flying through the days.
We’ve put together some simple workouts you can do from your own room.
If you struggle to get up in the morning, then a workout from your own bed sounds too good to be true right? Wrong, this is actually a thing! Be sure to check out this 5-minute fat-burning workout, a perfect activity to wake yourself up in the mornings.
http://https://youtu.be/j-sOWLKGmKs
Most uni rooms come fitted with a desk and little floor space, so workouts you can do at your desk gives you no excuse. This 10-minute workout is the perfect exercise to do when you need a break from revision or whilst you’re waiting for your dinner to cook.
http://https://youtu.be/0Dp2rL397jA
Your favourite tv shows started but summers just around the corner and you still haven’t started working out yet. Try working out whilst watching your favourite shows! This one is particularly good to do if you want to have fun and tone up.
http://https://youtu.be/S6OIKsZammI
If you go to the gym a lot and want a high-intensity workout, or have been doing some other exercise videos in your room but want to test yourself, follow this Joe Wicks HIIT workout. With no equipment needed this simple yet effective workout will definitely get your pulses racing.
http://https://youtu.be/TwOuh73cGGQ
Although this may seem like a warm down, stretching is actually really good for you and it’s something most of us forget to do. Whether it’s on its own, after a workout, or before bed, this is a great activity to add to your daily routine.
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