The unwritten rules of UEA etiquette

University life can be challenging, awkward, terrifying, but also lots of fun. Everything’s a bit different from home, we’re in different situations and surroundings which must be handled with caution. Here are a few of uni life’s unwritten rules explained to help you through the darker times.

When is it okay to use someone else’s milk?

Of course the answer is technically never without asking, but if you say you haven’t pinched a splash for a quick tea, chances are you’re lying. Turn a blind eye if you catch a flatmate in this situation, who can deny a fellow Brit that all important morning brew? Plus, you don’t have to feel guilty about stealing theirs when the situation is inevitably reversed.

However, if I go to grab a quick bowl of coco pops before my 9AM and the last of my milk has gone, I’m going full on Liam Neeson – I will look for you, I will find you and I will make you buy me a Jagerbomb on Saturday (That’s the quote, right?). If you’re using so much of my milk that I can’t even have my cereal, then you’re being a dick.

Yik Yak says it best

Where should you sit in seminars?

Choosing where to sit in a seminar can be tricky when most of us are embedded with that incredibly British fear of invading other people’s personal space. We’ve all suffered the horrible situation of arriving late and facing the choice between the seat right next to the tutor at the front, or having to awkwardly ask to squeeze onto a table corner where a seat definitely isn’t meant to fit. Do you perch on the corner forcing those either side of you to cram their stuff into one pile, or face two hours of self-conscious torture wondering if everyone’s staring at the tutor, or the edgy tee and shirt combo you really wish you hadn’t experimented with today?

Never go for the tutor. Your class will think you’re the teacher’s pet, and you may even accidentally graze their knee as you shuffle in place. Always squish with your peers – at least that way you can check Facebook without feeling too guilty.

When can you take someone else’s things out of the washing machine?

Laundry is a long and arduous chore that most students will probably put off for as long as possible. This is a problem faced mainly by first years who are likely sharing laundrette facilities.

Having summoned the motivation to trek to the laundrette, the last thing you want to see is a row full of finished washes, with no fellow laundry-goers to clear out their sparkling Calvins. Transferring the finished load into a vacant tumble-dryer and leaving the door open is acceptable, maybe into a nearby basket if you’re in a rush and no-one’s looking.

Please don’t make me have to wash it again

Should you clap at the end of lectures?

Now this is an odd one. It isn’t explained to you by anyone at the beginning and becomes a tentative gesture which recedes in direct correlation through the semester to motivation levels. It always seems strange to me to applaud people for doing their jobs; I tried it on the cashier in Morrisons last weekend and got some strange looks to say the least.

It is of course polite, but to be honest if I was a lecturer I’m not sure quite how gratified I’d feel by the half-hearted five second flurry of claps granted as students stampede for the doors. Maybe it’s a secret ploy devised by students centuries ago, to alert those who couldn’t quite keep their eyes open for the entirety of an hour on the hybridisation of atomic orbitals that they can now awaken and return to their Netflix binge at home.

How should you deal with drunken LCR encounters with people in your seminar?

You see someone in the LCR who sits opposite you in your seminar and have never spoken before. Obviously you scream with excitement and proceed to snapchat ‘seminar buddiiess’. Insisting on buying each other a VK or five, you swear you need to start talking to each other more in seminars.

Fast forward to that seminar three days later. You walk in and make momentary eye contact. Do they remember? Is what you remember all there is to be remembered? A slight smile and you’re okay to sit next to them and reminisce at the great drunken banter you shared. A quick aversion of the eyes? Oh God, it was them you tried to force onto your shoulders for a spectacular finale to Take That’s – Greatest Day, wasn’t it? Sit on the other side of the room and spend two hours of deep regret for thinking dropping Tequilas in your Snakebites was ever a good idea.

“Is he going to remember this on Thursday?”

It’s a dog-eat-dog world at university; you’re never going to get it right and please everyone, so you might as well go all out and steal that milk because everyone else is going to do the same.