University: Tips for Freshers
Heading into her final year at University, somethingyousaid.com’s Kirstie Newman feels adequately qualified to deliver some useful tips for freshers. Here goes…
Get involved with as much as you can handle. Join societies you wouldn’t have dreamed of at high school. Uni is your chance to start over if you want to. Use it.
Keep the door to your room open whenever you’re not busy and don’t mind company. Your housemates will then realise that, when your door is shut, you don’t want to be disturbed.
Don’t bother trying to match all your plates, bowls, cups and cutlery. You will lose or smash at least half of them. I know it’s hard for the OCD amongst you, but go plain and cheap. You’ll appreciate it when it’s in 17 pieces on the floor.
Don’t go home too soon into the semester. Don’t wait till Christmas if you can travel home easily, but give it a few weeks, and at least two full washing loads.
I feel like a hypocrite saying ‘budget’, because I still haven’t managed it, so all I can say is try. Planning meals helps.
The delivery charge for online supermarket shopping is usually cheaper than the money you’ll spend on taxis/buses and the extras you pick up on the way round.
Staying on campus in halls is the best way to meet people, but if you’re commuting, make friends on your course and say yes to invites out in freshers week. Someone will have a floor you can crash on.
Fresher’s Flu is a thing. It’s caused by lots of alcohol, little food, some sleep, some saliva swapping and small skimpy outfits, but you can prevent it. Union venues usually have cloakrooms for a small price and pasta is a quick and easy meal – I’m not the fun police but being ill without your parents to wait on your every need for the first time is the worst.
It’s not all about parting and drinking, you’re pay a heck of a lot of money to studying something you enjoy, utilise it, find a healthy balance between sleeping working and partying, but mostly enjoy it because it can be the best three years of your life. And they go so unbelievably quick.
Words by Kirstie Newman
