Being a Liverpool fresher: Expectation vs. reality

Face it: everything you think you know about first year is based on the Instas of those in the year above you. They always look like they are constantly partying at the coolest bars and have made their best friends for life. Well, don’t believe everything you see on Instagram.

Uni is definitely an experience. But having your independence, living somewhere new and having a fresh start is not as easy as it looks.

Freshers week is not all its cracked up to be

First of all – it’s not only a week, it seems to last forever. And yes, you’re expected to be out every night until your liver can’t take any more. It probably feels like you’ve wasted £40 on a wristband only to spend your first ever night in Liverpool in Fusion. You would have been better flushing your money down the toilet. Freshers week is a laugh. You’re drunk for 20 hours of the day, and just when you start to sober up, it’s time to get smashed again. But when you turn up to a zoo party dressed as an animal, as it is a zoo party, but you and your mates are the only ones in Concert Square supporting the zebra stripes and cat ears, you really question what the hell you are doing there. Hey, at least you got to meet the D list celebrity from Geordie Shore.

“Yes he is famous MUM and his name is Gaz not Gary”

Brace yourself for the awkward lift encounters

Between your million new friends on Facebook and countless pictures with strangers it may look like you’re becoming a social butterfly. But chances are you will never speak to them again. The main challenge you will face is when you see them in the lift. You’ll be left to wonder if you told them your biggest secret in the toilets of Baa Bar, or if they even recognise you at all. Either way, prepare for 15 of the most awkward seconds of your life.

You will miss home, but you’ll also miss uni

No matter who you are or where you are from, it is inevitable at one stage you will miss home. Moving to a concrete jungle when you are used to living in a cul-de-sac, the sight of grass is enough to make you weak at your knees. When you’re really homesick every time you walk past Lime Street you can hear your hometown call your name. You then have to decide if you want to spend half of your loan on a train ticket, or not eat for the next week. Truth is, when you’re home, you will miss uni. You will start to crave the sound of police sirens at 3am and the voice of the drunk Scousers asking “you alright love?”

Your sleeping pattern will never be the same again

Sleep at uni is for the weak. Be prepared to have a messed up sleeping pattern for the next three years of your life. Consider 1am as an early night and being woken up at 4am by screaming girls in the flat next door as the norm. Time in the night seems to go a lot faster than during the day. You aim to have an early night, next thing you know it’s 6am and you have a lecture in three hours. At least you’ve made it through a whole series of Suits in one night.

Want to be healthy? Think again

Can’t wait to vom this up in the morning

The idea of being healthy at uni is all well and good until you realise lettuce leaves go off in a matter of days and the trek back to Aldi is never worth it. Next thing you know it’s midnight and somehow you and your friends have ended up in Archies eating a waffle the size of your head. Lets just hope you have more willpower second year.

Early morning fire alarm tests will make you go a little crazy

The fact is on multiple occasions you will be woken up in middle of the night by the most horrendous screeching noise above your bed. Disorientated and not knowing what the hell is going on, you have to make one of two choices. Do you run down the ten flights of stairs in your dressing gown with the possibility the building is burning around you? Or do you hope your luck really isn’t that bad, pull the duvet over your head and stay where you are? Choose wisely.

Be prepared for being completely broke

You will never experience being this poor, ever. You want to live the high life; make the most of the secret bars in the city and play a weekly game of Ghetto Golf. In reality, you struggle to remember life not being in minus figures. Despite this, you’ll still 100% make it out at least one night a week. You will promise yourself you will have a cheap night, but five tequila shots later at bar Cava and you somehow made it to floor three in Level singing your heart out to Westlife. But who cares, an overdraft is technically free money right?

So apparently being a fresher isn’t just about getting slaughtered every night of the week and nursing your hangover the next day in the nearby pub. If you take away the fact your blood is now 90% alcohol and the brutal home sickness, being a fresher is one of the best experiences of your life. Oh, and you have to study too.. And by study we mean get 40%.