You can’t say you’ve gone to a British university unless you’ve done these 65 things

41) Drank out of one of those big Sports Direct mugs


There is something distinctly unique about going to university in the UK, so much so that the experience is unmatched elsewhere. For example, the general acceptance that a normal night out consists of getting drunk off cheap supermarket branded vodka in some grimy halls or moulding student house, playing Ring of Fire wearing nothing but a toga, and the understanding that the night will be a success if it’s rounded off with a snog from a shirtless, sweaty rugby boy on the SU dance floor, and some cheesy chips. Or that when the alarm goes off at 8am, your breath reeking of the kebab you half devoured only four hours ago (the other half is lying nervously close to your flatmate who ended up shagging again last night), you simply roll over and miss your 9am lecture, spending the whole day watching Friends and eating pesto pasta. And what about the obsession with VK, or bringing home traffic cones on the voyage back from the club?

Three years at university goes by in a second, and there are some universal truths experienced by all that make up the British university experience. The law literally states you can’t say you went to a British university unless you experienced at least some of these 65 things:

1. Skipped a 9am because you were too hungover

Classic me x 

2. Shagged a flatmate

You went to uni knowing this was the golden rule of the halls or house: don’t shit where you eat. Yet here you are, not even a term in, waking up next to Sam who lives two doors down, both of you reeking of orange VK and regret. 

3. Lived off pesto pasta, or maybe just plain pasta for the week

The options are either do this, or don’t go out all week. The answer is obvious

4. Then learnt how to cook a jacket potato and named it your “speciality” 

It took you a good year to figure out the microwave-for-five-mins-oven-bake-for-30 trick. Good for you, it works every time – the potato comes out crispy and makes the house smell great, which normally leads to a half-hearted compliment from your housemate. But let’s just get one thing clear – this is not something to be proud of, nor does this make you a “skilled cook” no matter how much your loving mother tries to tell you otherwise.

5. Spent at least a third of your loan two weeks after it drops

Woops! Another £100 spent on PrettyLittleThing! What am I like!

6. Thrown up in a taxi

That’ll be £50 please mate.

7. Told your mate you’ll buy them a drink instead of paying taxi fare

And to this day you still haven’t bought them that drink.

8. Signed a rental agreement in first term, and realise you hate your soon-to-be housemates by the end of third term

It’s impossible to remain friends with everyone you meet in Freshers’ Week. In those two weeks you have no filter – the goal is to simply get yourself into as many WhatsApp groups as possible so when you chat to your home mates you can act like you’ve found a whole new crew of bffs. Come November you’ll realise that half of them suck and maybe you even hate them (!) but you’ve already signed for a six person house for second year and boy oh boy what a long year it will be. 

9. Kind of fancied your seminar tutor

Is this postgraduate hot orrr…am I the only one?

10. Shagged your seminar tutor

There’s always one who manages to pull them in some dirty little club in your uni city. Their BNOC status lives on to this day. 

11. Tried being a club promoter for a week

You quickly handed all the flyers back when you realised late nights knocking on freshers’ doors trying to get them to turn up to a club at 10pm just wasn’t worth the commission. 

12. Come home from a night out with a road sign or traffic cone

The cleaners loved them

13. Eaten your take away alone in your bed

You whip off your night out clothes, snuggle up into bed and tuck into your chicken doner. In your drunk state you notice you’re making odd grunting noises while you nom through this meal at an ungodly speed and you pray none of your flat mates walk in. Garlic mayo flies all over the place and you’re utterly repulsed by yourself but there’s no turning back now. 

14. Woken up after a night out with some form of take away food on your face

This tends to be the aftermath of eating in your bed. You wake up to the smell of grease and meat, sit up and notice a small chicken nugget is pressed into your cheek. All around your room are bits of kebab, chips and the ketchup-covered polystyrene box. A shiver of shame spreads through your body as you realise this is your life.

15. Got a halls fine for one of the following:

Smoke alarm going off, smoking in one of the rooms, not emptying the bins, blocking the sink, covering the smoke alarm with a sock/cling film/anything, just there being too much mess in general for the cleaner to handle.

16. Arrived back at your house adamant you’re staying in and catching up on work only to be dragged out until 4am anyway

No please don’t make me come out I reaaaaaaallllllly don’t want to.

17. Come down with a nasty cold after a ‘foam’ party

Look this wasn’t even a foam party really. You were just in a really grimy club while the DJ chucked Fairy Liquid at you. At one point you slipped over and just tearily said to your housemate: “Let’s go home *sniff*.” 

18. Got freshers’ flu

Tbh you probably still have remnants of it to this day. It never leaves you.

19. Invited your home friends up for a night out with your new pals only to find out they like each other more than they like you

They’re going to the toilet together and everything. Alexa, play That Should Be Me.

20. Had a breakdown in the library

Me before every deadline amirite!!1??

21. Complained about Circuit Laundry 

Either someone’s stolen your stuff, or there’s loads of little pieces of dust all over your clothes, or there’s not enough money on your card and you don’t want to spend a fiver on fucking WASHING. 

22. Drank, taken drugs, or fornicated on university property

Bet you thought I’d forgotten to mention you reading this right now, you who haven’t done any of those things because you are not cool. Nope instead you’ve had a wank on campus. Wasn’t good, was it? And you did it more than once. You filthy little masturbator.

23. Extended the overdraft

Not being funny but just save yourself some time and max that puppy out from day one.  

24. Been kicked out of a club

And you know what, fair enough. Vomiting over the balcony, falling all the way down the stairs and stealing the drinks from the bar before paying feels reasonable. 

25. Left the club after an hour to get food

Why bother spending more money on shots and double vodka lemonades, when you could be buying cheesy chips?

26. Had cheesy chips more than three times in one week

My diet is sacred. 

27. Got off with a rugby boy

Right in the middle of the SU for the whole world to see, baby!

28. Shagged a rugby boy

Fml everyone knows already I will never live this down. 

29. Walked a walk of shame

Hey now, we’ve all been there.

30. Paid for the expansions on Piccolo and brought it out. every. Single. Time. you. Go. out.

Hahahahaha will Ben let this total stranger spray whipped cream on the end of his cock or take a sip of Carling? Oh I wonder what he’s gonna do.

31. Cried to a stranger you meet in a club toilet, told them your life story and then never see them again

You tell each other all your deepest, darkest secrets that you haven’t ever told anyone. You both cry, hug, say you love them and that you “kinda feel like we might be soul mates” and then never speak to them again. God forbid you bump into each other around uni, but if you do, you immediately look to the floor, turn around and pretend your phone’s ringing.

32. Moaned about your shitty landlord

Got mould? Damp? Stained carpets? ‘Keep the house well ventilated’ is their answer to everything, and you can kiss goodbye to that deposit of yours too.

33. Turned up late to a lecture and been absolutely mortified

There is just no casual way of walking into a mid-flow lecture without the entire room looking up and eyeing you up and down. Even worse if the lecturer makes some sly comment like “what time do you call this?” Yes, I’m late. Yes, I’ve had no sleep. But I’m here aren’t I? LET ME LIVE. 

34. Got a book out from the library then not touched it

Lol people actually do the reading? Not me. 

35. Had to duck out of a 9am lecture or seminar to be sick because you can’t hack your hangover

When are you gonna grow up? Seriously you can’t be a little bitch all your life.

36. Been on a sports social despite not playing for the team

“I’m a social member!!!”

37. Decorated your uni flat with empty bottles of alcohol

I get you think this is really cool and edgy and yeah in an artisan cafe or whatever this is a vibe but we are not in an artisan cafe we’re in your unwashed grotty kitchen and you didn’t even rinse the bottles out before you put them in the window sill. Now they’re attracting flies.

38. Covered your walls in food colouring from that one time you tried DIY’ing fake blood for Halloween

Regrets. But spooky regrets.

39. Got a taxi to a club for bang on 10pm because a promoter told you it would be rammed by then, to find it completely empty

Fucking LIARS. 

40. Invested in an excessive amount of fairy lights

A vibe.

41. Drank out of a Sports Direct mug

Why this happens, or how it started at university, no one will know.

42. Exclusively drank own-brand supermarket booze

People who drink branded vodka like Smirnoff or worse, expensive shit like Cîroc, are not your friend. 

43. Begged someone in the smoking area to give you a ciggie in exchange for a quid

You probably got off with them an hour later. 

44. Said the words ‘top shagger’ 

*shudders*

45. Created a house chart for shagging or vomiting

Mum was so proud. 

46. Had the private school vs. state school debate during a pre drinks

All the private school kids stay very quiet until one has had just tipped over into drunkie land and starts with the “WELL MY PARENTS WORKED REALLY HARD TO GET WHERE THEY ARE TODAY” – aaaaaaand we’re off. 

47. Done an all-nighter 

Same story, different essay. 

48. Made a cocktail of your own comprised of really rank stuff but convinced yourselves it’s a game changer

Lambrini, vodka, bit of lager, and some Tesco’s own brand squash to balance it out. Delicious.

49. Convinced yourself into a panic that Turn It In will think you’ve plagiarised somewhere 

There is nothing quite as exhilarating as clicking the submit button on an essay you only finished two hours ago, with the knowledge that you definitely missed out at least 10 references. 

50. Got an STI

Okay this doesn’t apply to everyone, but we all know someone who has had chlamydia and that my friend is a fact of life. 

51. Fallen very hard in love with a total stranger in the library

You’re daydreaming over a book of poetry or something equally lame. Suddenly you look up. There he is. James. James is so fit and lovely but he’d never notice a poetry-reading loser like you. So you continue to snatch glances at afar. You imagine one day walking past him and nonchalantly asking if you want to have a coffee break together. Coffee breaks soon become dates, and before you know it you’re making love in his single bed while his housemates noisily converse in the next room. James tells you he loves you, and you agree to marry after you graduate. You have babies (the first is a “happy accident” but you never tell them that), the other two completely intentional. You send them off to uni and retire to the Bahamas together, happily ever after. Then you wake up and realise you’ve dribbled at least a litre on that poetry book. Now it’s even lamer.

52. Pissed in the sink in your room

You horrible little gremlin. Who raised you?

53. Yeeted a VK across the dance floor

Objectively, this isn’t a very nice thing to do. Some poor person might end up with a bonk on the head and they’ll have to fill out the bumped heads form like in primary school. It’s not nice but also seems like the best idea at the time. Plus the flex and flick of the wrist is just so much better than dropping it by your side on the floor, where you will undoubtedly trip over it two seconds later. Not big dick energy. Yeeting VK? Massive dick energy. In more than one sense.

54. Been hard at work on some essay you really care about only to be distracted by the sound of your housemate shagging so loudly and enthusiastically you thin one of them must be murdering the other

Jesus Christ, Emily. We know Ethan is not that good in bed please stop overcompensating hun.

55. Ended up in A&E for some dumb reason

Like half your ear coming off after a fireman’s lift gone wrong, or dislocating your jaw when eating a meatball Sub. See more here.

56. Got a pres shut down by halls security or your neighbours

You think you’re so sneaky, turning down the music by one decibel and telling everyone half heartedly to shush. But this is not Project X and security/your whingy second year neighbours have ears like bats and will not be fooled by this. There will be banging at the door. You will freak out. You will pretend not to be drunk when you very clearly are. It doesn’t end well for anyone, total vibe kill, how dare these people have ears? Enjoy the silence, Jane, I hope it makes you very happy.

57. Paid upwards of 30 English pounds for a nightclub event that ends up being thoroughly mediocre

But come on! They said there was gonna be a ball pit!!! How can you say that wasn’t worth it? Don’t even get me started on the masked ball.

58. Had to break the news to someone you don’t want to live with them next year

Somehow this is worse than an actual break up. Especially the part when they cry and tell you they have nowhere else to go.

59. Begged a club photographer to take a picture of you and the squad looking lit af

The woken up the next day to discover it is the worst photo you’ve ever been in and at least 30 per cent of your genitals are visible.

60. Been out more than twice in a week and told EVERYONE about it

The main reason you go out three times (or more) in one week is not for the fun, nor because you simply enjoy the taste of alcohol or your own vomit in the morning. It is because then you can tell everyone in your seminar, as you amp up your woozy appearance, “sorry guys if I’m a bit slow today, went out three times this week”. They all drop their jaws in amazement, the whole room claps, your lecturer shakes your hand. Legend behaviour. You also use this as a false “average” for every time someone asks you how much you go out. “Three times a week usually mate” even though it was just the once, but who needs to know that eh x

61. Asked someone what A-levels they got as a conversation starter

Then immediately regale them with stories from your gap year

62. Had a bigggg fall out with your housemates

It ain’t uni without a few scuffles about things ranging from very minor: open can of beans in the fridge left for too long, to kinda major: you shagged two people in the house and now the vibe’s a bit weird. Living together with people who aren’t your family for the first time is a life lesson. People forget their keys, people aren’t always clean, people drink your milk. The best thing you can do is try not to become the passive aggressive note leaver or group chat messenger. It’s just not a good look for you.

63. Told your uni mates they’re as good as your home mates

Probably when you’re drunk and huddling in the club on like, day two. And then for real, in second year, when you actually know them. Nothing says true happiness like “I just love you guys” slipping out in a slurred voice on every single night out.

64. Posted a photo of your uni on Instagram with the caption “Uni looking beaut today”

You’ve definitely argued with your home friends as to whose uni’s the best. 

65. Called upon the bank of mum and dad for some money

“Hi dad yeah uni is great yeah I’ve made some friends yeah the course is okay, yep yep, can I have a tenner to buy food for the week because haha I’ve ran out of money again, woops!”

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