Freshers: I Love You!

We were all young once!

uea fresher
Passing out here is a Fresher rite of passage. Photo: UEA

Passing out here is a Fresher rite of passage. Photo: UEA

Last Wednesday, I had a seminar in the CD Annex. As if the hellish walk there wasn’t bad enough, I spent my entire journey stuck behind a group of very lost Freshers, recovering from their T-Shirt Party induced hangover. The Freshers in front of me were beyond annoying; dawdling slowly down the middle of the pavement, stopping outside every building to check the name, making me a good 10 minutes late for my seminar. But despite all this, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at the poor things. Exactly a year ago I was in their position. Lost, scared and in total awe of the hugeness of the concrete maze that is the UEA campus. I’m sure that I was just as much of an annoyance to the late second year stuck behind me as these new fledglings were to me.

For a lot of Freshers, university is their first time away from home. You leave for uni on a massive high – you’ve got great A Levels, got into your chosen uni and had a lush, long summer. On top of this, you can finally leave your boring hometown and all the people in it in your dust and get out into the big wide world! It’s no wonder that when Freshers rock up to UEA they’re a bit overexcited and cocky. You’ve earned the right to go a bit crazy in Freshers week!

DOWN IT FRESHER

I understand why some people hate freshers and the LCR during Fresher’s week. It’s full of newbies who can’t handle their Jäger and those who haven’t quite learnt their bar etiquette yet (I’ve heard reports of SOME Freshers waving money and even clicking their fingers at the bar staff – eugh) but these are all skills that will come with time.

Can any of us honestly say that when we arrived at Freshers we were the saintly students that we are now? It’s so easy to hate Freshers, but it’s much more difficult and mature to admit that you were just like them. Uni is meant to be a learning curve, if you arrive smug and perfect what’s the point? What are you going to learn? If you really can’t stand Freshers then just stay out of the LCR on their eponymous week.  It’s rightly theirs after all. If you hate them that much maybe you just need to come to terms with the fact that you’re too old and move on. No one likes a killjoy.

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