It’s the main thing that students-to-be simultaneously look forward to and fear the most. Freshers' week. The week where you’re supposed to move in, drink, meet your flatmates, drink with your flatmates, go to the events, drink at the events, and make friends that you’ll hold dear to you for the rest of your life. I had my 18th birthday two days before my A-Levels results day which would reveal to me which university wanted me, and what I would do if they didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d got my first choice, insurance choice, or gone through clearing, the freshers' week would have been the same. Clubbing at the student union, pub crawls, laser tag, some Love Island celebrity rocking up and us all standing awkwardly at the silent disco that we only wanted to go to for the "experience."
My freshers' week wasn’t quite like that. I gained my bearings of the city of Southampton by worriedly rushing to job interviews and trying to find where I could get a good clotheshorse. But, as the week was coming to a close, I worried that "uni culture" might not be for me. I had attended two events and I hadn't really enjoyed either of them. I worried that I had plunged myself into a hyper-social, bacchanalian environment that just wasn’t aligned with my introverted, needing-a-job self.
The need to live up to the "uni experience" is something that infuriates me, but also saddens me. Sometimes you can feel like a knife at a fork party when you’re not the social butterfly that universities are targeting when they advertise themselves. Freshers' week isn’t for everyone, and it won’t give you everything you expect it to give you. Let me tell you all the reasons that freshers' week isn’t all it’s hyped up to be, why that’s okay, and why (for most people) the best parts of your university experience will happen after that godforsaken week.
First, I’m not a big drinker. The tipsiness between sobriety and drunkenness is a sensation that I like to savour, and I only really drink every month or so. When I moved into a city I didn’t know, with people I didn’t know, with the expectation of getting hammered every day for seven days, it made me uncomfortable to say the least. Freshers' week and uni life, in general, has way too much emphasis on drinking and tends to equate alcohol with a good time and a vibrant social life. We all know that’s not always the case. For people who can’t drink or just don’t fancy it, they can feel cut off from their peers who are out three or four times a week in their first year.
The bright lights, tight dresses, and screaming “WHAT DO YOU STUDY?” in forty ears a night can feel a little bit like a pageant and isn’t always the best place to make friends. You all have university and this freshers' event in common; you all like to have a good time and you are all getting to grips with a new city and a new way of life. But this doesn’t mean that everyone you meet during freshers' week will become your best friend. I got five numbers on my very first night at uni from people I haven’t seen since. I keep planning to delete their numbers, but I haven’t yet. Your best bets are to get to know people in your flat, in societies, or on your course. Of course, you can meet some really great people on a night out (I certainly have!) but you don’t have to come home on the fourth night out, holding in nervous tears because you haven’t found your people yet.
I’ll tell you that the best bits of uni (so far) for me came way after the week of broken heels. There is no way to say this without sounding like a mother, but drinking is always better with people you know and trust. For example, during my second year, I got "wine-drunk" with my housemates and we carved melons for Halloween because the pumpkins were all sold out. This tipsy night-in was full of laughter. It was also great fun walking home from Christmas balls and karaoke nights barefoot because I knew that the friends I was with would get me home safe. I've spent many a day sitting in the library, desperately needing to do work for tomorrow, but messing around in a study room with my mates or going for a walk or doing literally anything else. And hey, you might even enjoy the course you’re here to do!
These are the moments that will define your university experience, not your first week of being a young adult.
By Elizabeth Sorrell
Image courtesy of Mark Angelo via Pexels
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