Everything that will happen in Freshers’ Week

Freshers’ Week: this is it. Your chance to reinvent yourself, to become a BNOC, to finally get laid. Or, perhaps not.

Here’s a definitive guide of what to expect in your Freshers’ week:

One flatmate will turn up late and consequently be excluded from the pack

Nothing against you, Bella, but we’d all already decided to go to Sainsbury’s before you lugged your bags through the door. You get unpacking your stuff and we’ll see you when we stroll back in arm-in-arm in two hours, laughing hysterically at our new in-jokes and already calling each other by tailor-made nicknames.

Your dad will embarrass you

After all the heavy lifting is done and dusted, your dad will pop himself down and crack open the crate of buds he brought. He will set you back in the social stakes so far that it will take you weeks to come back from this. He’ll be overfamiliar with the girls, too pally with the guys and absolutely decimate the shared toilet before heading back home.

You’ll quickly realise you didn’t need to pack mum’s old slow-cooker

The bottles of whiskey, Hemingway books and Atlas felt like they were going to make you look like the man of tomorrow to your new flatmates. Now, in the pallid lighting of your flat-pack bedroom, they make you look more like a MGTOW virgin. No one needs this many cheese graters in one flat.

That girl next door who you thought was really sound turns out to be a fucking dickhead

I’m talking about you Jessica you cunt. First there were pass agg notes in the kitchen. But that’s cool, everyone has cleaning standards. But then you started banging on my wall during predrinks. I said I didn’t want to come out and you said it would be low key. I knew your game, you bitch.

You become really pleased with the collection of bottles on your windowsill

Gareth in block C1 is seething with jealousy. As he peers over the measly blockade of crumpled Carlsberg cans in his window at the veritable fortress you’ve constructed from Gordon’s bottles and empty Glen’s receptacles, both you and he know you have won.

You’ll go to a Ministry of Sound Rave or Paint Party

We all went on holiday after our exams. We were all sick into a fish bowl. We all sang mildly offensive football songs as we walked down to the strip. And as we all left the paint party we swore we’d never go to one again.

But here we are.

The culmination of Freshers’ Week. The party that everyone is going to. Stop being so pretentious – you’re not better than 300 gallons of neon paint and neither is anyone else. This will actually be the last time it’s ever going to be acceptable to roll and slip and slide your way through a thousand other paint-people, gyrating as Pitbull rhymes “Kodak” with “Kodak”. And it’s okay to secretly enjoy yourself too.

 

You’ll already be aiming to scrape a 2:1

You arrived on your first day ready to knuckle down and study hard after you just about scraped through A-levels. You love the subject you’ve chosen and are ready to start exploring to a new depth, you’re going to expand your horizons and discover what you can offer to the world. By about day four this dream is dead. The hangovers are too severe and the internet is so superior in halls to at home that it would be a waste if you didn’t watch every single show on 4oD.

Someone will hide that they’ve never had a drink before and get utterly annihilated

You turn up at uni and are expected to arrive as a fully-fledged boozy legend. “Yeah, I’m more of a whisky drinker now, vodka does bad things to me aha…aha…” It’s not your fault your parents had a totalitarian grip on you that made Kim-Jong-Un look like the fairy godfather. You were cooped up like Harry Potter at the Dursley’s house, you weren’t allowed to have fun! It’s not your fault that you will get so drunk trying to keep up with all of your new mates that you end up sleeping in the hedge just outside your halls and are then given the imaginative nickname “hedge” or “hedgeman” or “hedge-dude” for the rest of the term.

You’ll want to make your room feel more individual

So you bought a Pulp Fiction poster. But everyone has one of them. So you bought the tennis girl adjusting her underwear. But Dirty Mike down the corridor has that one. So the back of your door now has the ‘Welcome to the Party’ poster with all the communist leaders.

You’ll befriend a promoter

But it turns out he just wants you for your money.

You’ll sign up to loads of societies and clubs that you have no intention of doing

African drumming – you want to expand your cultural horizons. DebatingSoc – great for the CV. Quidditch – hilarious! The worst thing about it will be the emails that clog up your inbox for the next three years asking you to pay your membership fees.

Ali the rugby player gets naked and you’re not sure if it’s acceptable

After a few days he doesn’t go by Ali anymore, he’s earnt some kind of weird cult-like nickname like Garlo or Squits. After night two, on the walk home Ali will start stripping. Everyone will laugh, but then he carries on. Off come the boat shoes, off come the chinos, off come the Calvin Klein’s. Is this acceptable? Is nudity now a thing? Should you get naked? What if it’s cold? What if you don’t get naked? Will Ali ever link arms and strawpedo a VK with you ever again? You drop anchor, take off of all your clothes and run free with Ali. What if the boys at school could see you now eh?

You’ll buy a bedside table

After 15 minutes of half-heartedly trying to knock it together, you put the battered components in the skip outside and never speak of your shame again.

Inappropriate jokes

Forgetting that you’re not in sixth form anymore, you’ll try and make a ‘your mum’ joke but then Nick tells you in front of everyone that his mum is dead.

You’ll make best friends with someone you absolutely hate by the end of the week

You heard them playing a song you like, so you popped into their room to say hi. Turns out they’re boring as hell and a really clingy drunk. You’re stuck with them for the whole semester and have to deal with the awkward “let’s not live together next year” conversation.

Someone will go around collecting everyone’s phone numbers

“INCASE WE ALL GET LOST!” – no, Lucy, we aren’t all getting lost, just trying to lose you.

You’ll take all the flyers you are offered

You are four posters up and still none of them will make your wall.

Crying

Freshers’ Week is a difficult time for many of us. Maybe it’s a forlorn sense of loss after moving away from home. Maybe it’s just a desperate plea for attention. Either is okay, you don’t know it yet but the guy from upstairs who no one likes is about to chin half a litre of Jäger and projectile vom all over your flat – your salty tears are long forgotten.

Snapchat

“Ugh 9am lol”

Flyers will cover your kitchen and bedroom

Who is B2B and why is he playing every club night in Nottingham?

What is Dollop?

Who has Gold Teeth?

What are the Canal Mills?

Even though these words adorn your fridge, your blue felt noticeboard and have congregated in a huge avalanche by your front door, you will not know what they mean till second year. And then it will be too late.

Your signature pose

Make sure you use it in every single picture.

The inevitable coital moments you will share with a flatmate

Ideal, you think to yourself, they’re reasonably interesting, quite attractive and only live two doors down from you. That’s until Michael, your second year mentor who’s supposed to guide you through the opening weeks of university, puts his arm around you and speaks with the air of someone who has seen all that the world has to offer. Who has seen things that you wouldn’t believe man, you had to be there. Who speaks with the wisdom of a man who has already experienced fresher’s week, and he says, rather eloquently…”Don’t shit where you eat mate.”

You’ll have a mishap in a taxi

And learn very quickly that it costs £60 if you make a mess.

Pizza

Perhaps it’s all the free Domino’s vouchers you’re being handed, or perhaps you’re simply too lazy to begin using those cooking skills your mum taught you last week. Either way, around second week pizza stops being a treat and becomes the sixth food group.

Discount cards

It’s only when you’ve walked away from the charming PR guy who cornered you outside the Union that you realise what you’ve done. Namely, parted with £20 of your precious money for a black card that gets you 80p off at Nando’s and free entry to one of the clubs if you turn up on your own, sober, at 10:30.

Ripped t-shirts

Oh cool, you turned yours into a crop top.

You’ll develop a love for your local drunken delicacy

Last year you wouldn’t have dreamed of eating gravy with cheese piled onto chips. Now, the chippy guy knows your name and order before you’ve hit the front of the queue. You should be sad about it, but you’re not.

The boys will compete to become the alpha male of the flat

Getting their cocks out and measuring them on the kitchen table would be considered impolite considering you’ve only just met these people. Instead, a week of oneupmanship and pointless physical challenges will take place until the top dog of the flat is found.

And Ben won’t accept Matt’s dominance, so he suggests an arm-wrestling competition at the next pres

The fragile masculinity of many will be broken that night, all because Ben’s rugby trials are at 8am tomorrow and he isn’t drinking.

You’ll drink from a jug/shoe/saucepan/vomit soaked pair of speedos

Because you are a fresher, and a glass is not enough.

You’ll meet the guy who hates forced fun

Jamie went travelling. He hasn’t bought a Freshers’ Week SU band. You asked him if he wanted to join your corridor for pre-drinks but he didn’t turn around. He just said he’s not really a “halls person” and spent more time with his second-year friends.

VKs

You’re never going to be able to make this look cool. Get a straw, chin it as fast as you can and then think about your alcohol problem.

You’ll smoke

Even though you don’t smoke.

You’ll trash every pair of shoes you own

A combination of Jack thinking it’s funny to wee at the bar, VK spillage and long walks home will leave your shoes unwearable.

Free champagne

Except it’s not champagne. Nor is it prosecco – or even really sparkling wine. It’s about 3 per cent making the whole bottle weaker than a pint of beer, and it will have a plastic cork. Still, bubbles are bubbles.

You’ll wear a school uniform

You hate yourself, as you pull your “stocking-look” tights up over your knees.

Your dog dies

Rover has gone to the farm now, Tom.

Someone will eat all of your food

And you’ll realise that the kitchen is no longer a place of sanctuary. Fuck you Kim for eating all of my bread and Crunchy Nut. Fuck you Kim.

You’ll also dress up as an animal

Battle of the halls was mad!

Pissing

The kitchen sink is closer, no-one will remember in the morning.

You’ll buy a lamp

Might as well put a dead bulb in it now because you’re never going to replace it.

You’ll have no idea that this is the skinniest you’ll ever be ever again

Hello, freshers’ fifteen.

You’ll drink a shot from somebody’s boobs

It’ll be a low moment, but it’ll happen all the same. With so many 18-year-olds relishing in their new found freedom, who doesn’t want to drink sweaty boob sambucca?

You’ll go to a ‘Facebook T-shirt Party’

And never, ever go to one again in your entire life.

Someone will be really fucking messy

By day three, it will become apparent who is clean and who is dirty af. At least one person in your flat will present themselves as a nightmarish, messy kitchen companion, but leave really sincere notes when they’re drunk promising to clean up later.

Your flatmate will break up with her boyfriend over Skype

You can hear the anguished sobs coming from the room down the hall, but you’re pretty sure they’re on the other end of the line since she shagged your best mate from home last night.

You’ll get freshers’ flu

You drank too much, didn’t sleep enough, took up smoking and snogged loads of snotty teenagers. What did you expect? Better than your flatmate who got chlamydia.

Written by Tom Jenkin, Roisin Lanigan, Oli Dugmore, Bobby Palmer, Natalie Clark, Evangeline Katz, Jonny Long, Annabel Murphy and Bella Eckert.