How to hide your Notts personality now you’re back at home

Everyone changes once they go to university. Everyone knows it's a rite of passage. However, despite it being a known fact, it does not stop your good ole home pals from judging you and your university based on who you have become.

Whether you've gone to Notts and can down a VK quicker than an Oxbridge student can bang out an essay, or you've wandered off to Durham to hang out with other people as bitter as you are at the admissions board of Oxford, all universities have stereotypes and unfortunately once you spend longer than a term at university, you too, will turn into the embodiment of your university. Sorry.

Therefore, I am here to help coach you through your time at home, to help you pretend to your mates, that you haven't become the definition of Notts:

Pack away that puffa

Puffa jackets are the designated uniform of all Nottingham students. Don't try to argue with me here. If it ain't North Face or Urban Outfitters, it broke, so go fix it.

Therefore, to fool your home friends into thinking you aren't a wannabe Urban Outfitters edgy model, pack away that puffa and mix things up. You can still wear your cool urban outfitters clothes because let's be honest, they cost a bomb, however throw in some old topshop from sixth form and some converse to balance out the edge. It'll shout 'I'm still the same person I was when I was 18, but I'm cool now'. You could pass as a York student, pretty average and not at all adventurous with your style (do they even have shops up there?)

Puffa + Superstars= Basic Notts Bitch

Don't even mention the word TRENT

If at all possible, and to not give yourself away as a Uni of student, dear God, please steer clear of all university based topics because Trent are bound to come up.

"How's Notts?" "Awful, we share it with Trent."

"Excited for Varsity?" "No, we will see Trent."

"I like your pink top." "Oh no, I forgot, that's the colour of Trent. I'll burn it when I get home"

I know it's hard but just try to stay calm, take a breath, a sip of drink and swallow your pride if anything vaguely related to Trent comes up. Pretend they're your friends and take a leaf out of the Uni of Manchester's book. They love Manny Met for crying out loud. Keep your friends close, and enemies closer and all that…

Did you know we go Uni of?

Don't talk about Ocean

Ocean and all the VKs that inhabit it, are famous across the country. Notts is known for their weekly chugging of children's beverages and dropping it like its hot to ABBA and One Direction on a Friday night. We get lit, we get drunk and we get wavey. That's just how the midlands roll.

One way to fool your home friends into thinking that you are actually cool and don't spend your Fridays whipping your top around your head to Baywatch, is to pretend you go to Ink or somewhere other than Ocean. Pretend you're hardcore, drinking vodka lemonades and doing drugs like they do in Manchester instead of just Ket or Nos or something. But don't worry, we all know the waves are your true home!

VKs NOT optional.

Don't talk about London either

Notts exists as London but up north since 99% of all students are from London or the wannabe home counties. Going home can therefore become a bit problematic because you probably know more about London now than when you actually lived there pre-uni. Home people cannot know this.

Therefore, in a paradoxical way you're gonna have to pretend that you're actually conditioned to the north. So, go back to London in the holidays to hang with your Labrador and eat brunch with mummy on the weekend but exaggerate how much you love Chips and Gravy. How it's so much colder up north. How the transport system is less efficient but less stressful than TFL. How everything is soooo much cheaper up north, even if it is only a 10p difference at Starbucks. How relaxing it is to be surrounded by the rolling hills of campus and the nuclear power plant of East Midlands Parkway, ah bliss.

Do something else with your life on a Wednesday night

Crisis is our home. It is our sanctuary. Our happy place. It's the one place at uni we feel completely stress free and at one unless of course, your having a crisis at crisis. It'd be out of the ordinary if you weren't to be honest. However, going home we must remember that Crisis means purely the Oxford Dictionary definition, and not our definition of bad decisions, bad alcohol poisoning, bad dancing and a even worse off bank account, therefore home people do not understand the concept of Crisis..

Home friends just DO NOT understand the magic and importance of getting a crisis ticket. Luckily for us, tickets go on sale in the holidays so the likelihood is, you'll be surrounded by friends when you go into the death trap that is FIXR. They just don't understand why you sit there refreshing your webpage, or why you cannot talk for at least ten minutes whilst you try to even see the options for all the tickets. They don't understand why you start getting agitated when the payment page freezes and that loading icon just keeps bloody loading. They don't understand why you have to excuse yourself to the bathroom to cry because you're going to have to queue again all term. They just don't understand.

Smiling because we had crisis tickets. Queuing is for peasants.

Good luck sons and daughters of Notts, I wish you well on your journey of pretending Notts hasn't transformed you into an Ocean loving, VK Chugging stereotype, who lives for 3am Food Factory instead of your Mum's roast dinner. In the meantime, maybe just don't talk about anything uni related and then you cannot slip up. Soon we will be reunited and you can bleed green and gold once more xoxo