Welcome to university in Bristol: How to be a silly (yet safe) fresh

Whoop! Look at you go! You have made the grades and are about to embark on the best three years of your life. The only thing that is and should be on your mind now is Freshers’ Week. As two and three time veterans of Bristol Freshers’ Weeks, we consider ourselves more than qualified to instruct you on how best to live yours.

Whether you’re a UWE, BIMM, or Bristol baddie, you can treat this 2025 Bristol university guide as gospel. Nothing else is worth reading. Refer to it as many times as you need to get through the undoubtedly hectic week/year. Here’s to you, Here’s to Bristol, and Here’s to university life. And please remember that Freshers’ is not the be-all and end-all; it’s just a normal, albeit for many, a very drunken week.

Safe nights out

There is more to Freshers’ Week than going out, but not much, and without sounding too much like your parents, who you are gleefully about to escape, staying safe is pretty basic. On your first venture to the triangle or, if you’re cool enough, down Gloucester road, ensure you are with your flat, even if you hate them. Don’t go alone.

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Trust us, experiencing the Triangle with others is far better than a solitary experience; think of the debrief the next morning in your already very dirty kitchen. Watch out for each other. There will almost definitely be someone who takes it too far (I took up that mantle on the Saturday night of Freshers’ 2023), make sure you are keeping an eye on each other and learn the difference between someone who is tipsily dancing and someone who should probably call it a night. Ask for drink covers and keep drinks close. Boring, boring, boring, we know, but not that much effort for a big reward. Having fun and staying safe are not mutually exclusive.

Sober socialising with your flat

As much as you may be under the illusion that the best friendships at university are forged in the hours from 12am-3am, under pink strobe lighting or in grotty club toilets, this, for the most part, is not true. Drunken conversations are drunken conversations, not necessarily epiphanic meetings between two long-fated best friends; let’s not get too romantic.

Whilst perhaps hard to believe, friendships are made in the quiet moments in your humble new abode, flat C2 of Hiatt Baker. Trying to navigate how to turn on the ovens, touring other people’s rooms, and rotting in the kitchen for hours. Do not be the person chewing everyone’s ears off at midnight in the SWX queue; the life, the soul of the party, only then to re-emerge at 8pm for pres the next day.

September usually treats Bristol very well; the sun will be shining, and the Downs are the place to be. Have an afternoon picnic, the dad of someone in your flat will have packed them an old rounders bat, rounders in the sun, before pres is the perfect wholesome Freshers’ Week activity.

Set some boundaries!

A fun one for the Bristol University guide 2025 – It’s dangerously easy to get swept up in the idea that you have to go out every night of Freshers’, even when what you truly need is a cold, dark room, a wet flannel on your forehead, and 8–10 hours of complete silence and bed-rotting. Pace yourself; if you go full throttle every night, by Wednesday you’ll be a dehydrated husk wondering if it’s worth queueing two hours for a kebab.

To ease your nerves: I’m Scottish, which meant I was 17 during Freshers’ and, tragically, I did not possess a fake ID. I didn’t go out. I loitered at flat parties, bounced between pres, and was usually tucked up in bed by 11 like a grandmother. It had absolutely no effect on my social life. I made plenty of friends. I had fun. I survived. I thrived. I felt no FOMO, only peace. Skip the sweaty club if you want to. It’s not going anywhere. In fact, it will haunt you all year.

Do not fear if you don’t get along with your flatmates

In a similar vein to the myth surrounding meeting your new besties in the toilets of Brass Pig, you will not necessarily be put in a flat with future guests at your wedding. That. Is. Okay! There is more to your Bristol life than the four walls of your Goldney kitchen. As we near the end of our Bristol lives, we can assure you that there is a surprisingly large percentage of people who do not speak to their first year flatmates (of which I am one).

The university is massive; you will find your people. We are strong advocates for going to the too-quickly snubbed events that the university puts on. Go to the faculty events, mine had free beer (because we really needed more of that). Free beer and some of my best friends I found in the reception of the Arts Complex.

And, you probably haven’t heard of this one before, but joining a society is a great way to meet people. That is literally the point of societies. Socialising always comes first. Don’t be silly, nobody actually has a raging interest in intramural touch rugby or creative writing; they just want to go to the pub with people who also have a small interest in intramural touch rugby and creative writing.

Join a society

Again, not to be a cliche but this really is one of the biggest things you can do to enrich your uni life and so of course made the Bristol University guide 2025.

Just to really milk this point – joining a society is one of the best and most important things you can do at uni, not just because it looks good on a CV (though it does) but because it’s how you meet the people who end up becoming your future housemates, your closest friends, and the reason you find yourself dressed as a cow on the Triangle at 2 am on a Wednesday.

It is so important to socialise with people outside your accommodation. Expand your horizons, expand your mind! So whether it’s pole dancing, rugby, cheese society, or, dare I say…. The Bristol Tab (shameless plug, sorry), give something new a go. I picked up a hockey stick for the first time in four years, and it was the best decision I ever made. Then I had an idea for a very silly article one day, and now I study journalism.

Sign up for seven societies, give up on five of them, and stick with the one that makes you laugh until you wheeze. It’s trial and error.  It’s tempting to stick to flat parties and pre-drinks, but the official Freshers’ events are worth checking out. Societies run taster sessions that could lead to unexpected hobbies (like rowing at 6am…. yes, people really do that). You don’t need to have your life sorted in week one. Just show up, try stuff, say yes more often than no. Worst case, you walk away with a free tote bag. Best case, you find your people!

Go to the Freshers’ Fair

Not only will you get a good idea of all the things you can do, you will also be the proud owner of a shiny collection of 50,000 tote bags, 17 mugs, 243 stickers, one slice of pizza and a safe sex kit. Yay! All of this will sit in your room untouched until you find it at the bottom of your wardrobe on move-out day. It’s a canon event.

Eat a vegetable and get up early (ish)

It truly is miraculous the healing effects a vegetable and a big glass of water will have on your mental and physical wellbeing. Do not replace meals with alcohol; attempt to eat some good food, the U1 bus will literally drop you at the door to Sainsbury’s. Pop some peas in your pasta, I dare you. Also, try and get out of bed and seize the day.

If you stay in bed past 11, you’re probably past the point of no return and will likely bed rot until 8pm pres. Get up, have an explore, see the suspension bridge, practice your route to uni, and have a mooch around Clifton. Try and maintain some sort of vague routine during the week, eat three meals a day and get a little fresh air. I promise you’ll feel better for it!

Don’t ignore the boring stuff

Register with the student GP, pick up your Ucard, figure out how to add printing credits to your account, tackle Blackboard because it’s a minefield, do some pre-readings, and budget. Your student loan will make you feel like Jeff Bezos, and you will feel tempted to Deliveroo every meal, but please remember you have rent to pay.

Master the holy trinity early: batch cooking, nectar card, yellow stickers. That is all. Try and do all of the boring stuff during Freshers’ Week when you have all the free time, make that first week of real uni just a little bit easier for yourself.

Go to some lectures

Not a Freshers’ Week thing, but a first year survival tip. We all know that the first year “doesn’t count”. Except, I hate to say, it kind of does. If you coast through it without showing up, the second year will hit you like a truck. This isn’t to say you need perfect attendance, lord knows I did not have such. Your academic future does not hinge on making that Thursday 9am lecture. That one you can definitely miss. But here’s the catch: Once you start missing lectures regularly, chaos unfolds and tears follow in second year.

So try and go, even if you haven’t done the reading. At the very least, maintain the illusion of competence. Have a vague idea of what’s happening in each module, skim some readings, and pop into the library on occasion, the ASS is a truly magical place. Your future self will thank you. (Oh, and you do still need to pass.)

Freshers’ Week will be a blur; in a year, you will scarcely remember it. It will be chaos, manic, overwhelming, wonderful, stressful; Embrace it all. Welcome to Bristol!