Every expectation you have as a fresher vs. the reality of your first year at uni

Every fresher starts university thinking their time there will make them either edgier, more cultured, or even a down-right legend.

Whether you've been influenced by Vod in Fresh Meat or the famed people in your university's alumni, you'll undoubtedly have a warped idea of what university life will entail. Here is the reality of being a fresher, so you can stamp out those hopes and dreams right now.

EXPECTATION

Freshers' Week will be 168 hours of unadulterated drinking and partying

REALITY

Everyone will go hard on the first few nights, get too drunk and get with someone they may or may not be in a flat with. But after that it's hungover cups of tea and long queues for registration. You might even go bowling for some sober flat bonding. Won't that be nice?

EXPECTATION

You will definitely go to all your lectures

REALITY

Once the haze of Freshers' Week is over, you are determined to start some serious academia. Mum has already made you promise to go to everything, but the reality of those 9am lectures is just too traumatic. The murmurings of "first year doesn't count anyway" will become background noise in halls.

EXPECTATION

You will stay really good mates with all of your home friends

REALITY

The group chat will be lit for the first couple of weeks as those at uni show off how amazing everything is, whilst those on gap years attempt to justify why spending a year working in Co-op was worth it.

After some weeks it will dawn on you that no-one will actually visit each other at uni and the first time you come home and go to 'Spoons and you'll realise it’s just not how it used to be. The next holidays will be spent trying to recreate those glorious school days, before just giving up and spending more time with your only slightly more interesting uni mates.

EXPECTATION

You will spend most of your time at uni shagging

REALITY

Surprisingly, there is not a massive flat orgy every night in halls. Packing up your belongings and driving two hours up the motorway does not suddenly turn you into a Russell Brand-esque sex maniac.

For the most part you will be as alone as you were back at home and your standards will be as questionable as ever.

EXPECTATION

You will become the best version of you

REALITY

You have so much free time, so you have a real opportunity to turn your life around and be the person you always wanted to be.

But this will never happen, and you certainly won't be fulfilling those dreams of going to the gym, reading those books to 'expand your horizons' or just generally becoming a better person. You will just get fatter, become even lazier and still be as much of a dick as you were back at home.

EXPECTATION

No one in your flat will care about cleaning or sharing pans, everyone's just so chilled from being drunk all the time

REALITY

The homely 'mess' depicted on Fresh Meat does no justice to the reality of a mountain of moulding plates. The reality is that everyone will start getting increasingly antsy as coursework builds up, probably culminating in a fight over Lucy's favourite mug that got smashed during pre-drinks.

EXPECTATION

You can handle your drink at all times

REALITY

Despite being given the 'drinking talk' by your parents and being warned not to lose your head on the very first night of freshers, you proceed to chunder like an absolute madman and that impression sticks with your flatmates. Your drink of choice is now sadly water, not K cider and the thought of it makes you feel queasy.

EXPECTATION

You will experiment with drugs and probably become lord of the underground scene

REALITY

You'll make hash brownies with your flat one time, think everything is in 2D and then pass out in bed by 10pm. Not quite the hedonism you had in mind.

EXPECTATION

Living in halls will be a raucous, five-storey non-stop party

REALITY

You'll never see half of them because they're constantly studying, and after the third week you'll be calling security to shut up the ones who actually do go out every night.

EXPECTATION

You'll be interacting with the intellectual elite

REALITY

Your house mate just admitted that he doesn't know what 'ingredients' go in a boiled egg.

EXPECTATION

You're at uni now so you are basically a grown up and completely independent

REALITY

"Oh yeah I’m going to uni now, I am finally free from my controlling parents!" quickly turns into "Mum, can you put another £300 into my account?" Freedom is not all what it's cracked up to be.