Why do we have lectures in Freshers’ Week when we don’t learn anything

The first two weeks of uni is a terrifying mix of clinging onto new friends you make, desperately trying to get your head around campus, joining societies and sports teams, learning that you can eat pasta five nights in a row and hiding your homesickness as much as humanly possible. The whole thing is a bit of a blur, a complete blur in fact. So when you’re forced to attend lectures where you’re given vast amounts of information about the structure of your course, you obviously won’t absorb any of it at all.

Apparently I attended lectures where I was shown how to register my modules, hand in assignments, reference correctly and use the library. I was told what reading I had to do for the term and what mark I needed to pass each section and, of course, not a single bit of it went into my brain.

Does anyone even know where the library is yet?

The argument that lectures are a part of university and therefore should be compulsory during Freshers’ just assumes that the entire purpose of university is to get a degree. If that was the case, why would any of us ever bother making friends, joining societies or playing in sports teams?

Freshers develop so much in those two weeks. They’re learning how to live independently, make new friends and how to step out of their comfort zone. Frankly speaking, these skills are far more important than any of the pointless introductory stuff you learn in the first couple of weeks at uni.

Boooo

If lectures started after Freshers’, we would feel settled in, hopefully have some friends and feel more at home on campus and thus absorb far more of the information we’re being given.

Clearly then, it’s unrealistic to expect freshers to walk onto campus and immediately be able to handle the new environment, new freedom, new friends and new social activities and still be able to begin their course like it’s no big deal.

It took me about two weeks to even begin to feel settled into university life and by that point I’d already got behind on my course. All that lectures in Freshers’ Week do is cause unnecessary anxiety for new students who are already anxious enough as it is.

Besides, there’s always one hungover fresh who embarrasses themselves by throwing up in their lecture after the first POP of the term, and that’s no good for anyone.