Everything you learn in your first semester of second year

What a rollercoaster it’s been


You’ve made it to second year, you’re feeling good. You’ve got your solidified group of friends, your sick party house, and that lovely big loan that’s brought you right out of your overdraft and back up to £0 after a banging summer. Bring it on.

But it’s not all fun and games. With second year comes actual responsibilities, including actually having to try your best with your uni work. Here are all the things I’ve learnt during my first semester of second year.

Magical cleaning fairies don’t exist

Remember in first year where you’d come downstairs after a heavy night, dreading to see the bomb site that is your kitchen, and magically it looked okay? Yes, the magic bin fairies had been and taken all the rubbish and if you were lucky enough, the cleaning fairies would have felt nice that morning and tidied up for you a bit. Well, unlucky mate. Fairies don’t actually exist and your house will look absolutely shit until you have an inspection or a house viewing.

You can’t make half as much noise as you did in halls

Take it from someone who learnt this the hard way, neighbours in student-heavy areas probably have had rowdy houses around them for years and years; if you have even one party in Freshers’ Week then they will phone the council on you. Be nice to them, send apology letters and just hope that you don’t break the rules of your abatement order.

You won’t be able to comprehend how you managed to go out three or four nights a week, every week

Someone’s had a beer

Somehow in first year, going out three or four times a week was the absolute norm. Now, trying to hack a back to back Friday and Saturday is getting to be as hard as some degrees. Some weeks it’s hard to make it out at all now that you actually have to do work. Because of this, every time you do go out everyone is an absolute mess, either to make up for missing a week or because they’re boring second years and their intolerance just isn’t what it used to be.

The charm of the LCR wears off

Do second years even go to Damn Good?

In first year it was heaven on earth, the best place to be every Tuesday and Saturday; but after hitting it twice a week, every week for an entire year it starts to become a bit boring. The music’s the same, your outfits are the same, and somehow your routine is the same. Go in, pee, strawpedo two VKs at Bottle Bar, and then yo-yo up and down for the rest of the night, losing all of your friends and dignity in the process.

You don’t really make any new friends

Last year it was a necessity, but you already have friends this semester and can barely keep up with them with all your work now that you have to get more than 40 per cent. Is it worth risking that friendship that you spent a whole year building, just to find a new friend that probably isn’t as fun anyway? I get it might be tempting with those fresh faces in some of your modules of people who have gone outside of their school (I know, they seem wild) but stick with what you’ve got, you don’t want to have to reassure new friend Poppy that you’re ‘honestly fine’ whilst being sick on yourself in the middle of Prince of Wales road; it was bad enough having to do that the first time.

You miss campus, a lot

Beautiful sunrise which is never to be seen in second year

Early morning (or late night) walks around the lake were where all the real DMCs happened, but now that you have to walk 20 minutes home anyway do you really want to make that an hours journey by going to the lake, having a walk in the cold and then having to go all the way home? No. But you will have time to go back to your old flat and be those weird second years who keep visiting for no reason.