Dear Fresher: What I wish I’d known this time last year

Dear Fresher,

You’ve unpacked your bags. You’ve put up your posters. You’ve waved goodbye to your parents and if your dad’s anything like mine he’ll have had a little cry as they drive away, leaving you to start this brand new, exciting stage of your life.

Five years of hard work, mind numbing revision and endless rewriting of personal statements has led up to this moment. Congratulations, you made it. Well done.

So what now?

University is a rite of passage for most young people today, much like owning an iPod or being sick into your own hands. It is portrayed in the media as a three year piss up with a few essays thrown in. But that very first week, the notorious ‘Freshers’, can be one of the most terrifying of your life. It certainly was for me.

On my way up to Norwich this time last year I was remembering a saying someone had relayed to me upon the discovery that I was about to start university.

“You spend the first year of university trying to get rid of the friends you make in the first week, so choose wisely.”

At the time I laughed. It was family friend and I felt the need to be polite. But I realised once I arrived at UEA that it was  terrible advice. When you’re starting out, it is so important to smile at everyone and reserve judgement on even the most eccentric characters. Even if they have a signed Jedward poster on their ceiling or are wearing a t-shirt that says “FBI: Female Body Investigator.”

“A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet” is a nauseating phrase but when it comes to your first week that’s the only attitude to have. Case in point: on my first night out, I stumbled out into the square trying to master my head spins. An equally drunk person plonked themselves down beside me, fixed his eyes pointedly on my breasts and when it transpired we did the same course, asked me to write his introductory essay for him. At first I thought this boy might be the most irritating person I had ever met, but we started chatting and as it turns out, he’s now one of my closest friends.

It is also important to remember that while there is only week of official ‘Fresher’s’ activities, you don’t suddenly stop having the opportunity to meet new people and make friends. For the first semester of last year, my friends and I were in a cold war against another group of girls for reasons none of us can remember. And then one day, after we got bored of shooting each other dirty looks across the dance floor of Kartel we realized we actually liked each other a lot.

No two people’s experiences of freshers week are the same. However, if you ignore the voice in your head telling you people will think you’re weird for starting up a conversation, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. As Charlie Brooker said in a recent article for the Guardian Online, “[people are] probably too busy worrying about how they come across to worry about how you come across.”

So, ignore what my rather pompous family friend told me. My advice? You spend the first year of university meeting the people you should have met in the first week. So don’t worry.