People at Oxford are actually pretty normal

Was freshers really that bad? This fresher was genuinely terrified of coming. Here’s a before and after look at his college’s “Welcome Week”.

Before Freshers – 03/10/14

Oxford is full of idiots. Moronic, socially inept, over-zealous idiots. At least, that’s what you’d think from the freshers’ pages that have infected my Facebook. As shown in a recent Tab article, the inane trash and blatant self-gratification of those that post in these groups is fucking horrendous, and the thought of spending three years with this bunch of sycophants fills me with dread.

Three years which supposedly begins with binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and late night kebabs. Oh the joys of Fresher’s week. Or should I say Welcome Week, because that’s what my college is calling it.

I mean, I couldn’t care less about the name, but it feels like a deliberate attempt to separate Oxford fresher’s week from those of other universities, and one look at the timetables shows why.

I’ve got a friend at King’s studying Maths, and she has Example playing at her Fresher’s (alright, he’s no John Lennon, but he’s a big name okay?). There are masked balls, and big name artists, bands and DJs across the nation, ready to initiate the new blood into university life.

At Oxford, bar a few club nights (Balliol-themed? really?) the highlights of my welcome week seem to be a rowing taster session and pre-dinner drinks with my tutor. Now, I love booze as much as the next Fresher, but I had something a bit wilder and more debauched in mind.

Gun fingers, a sure fire way to make friends during freshers

Criticisms aside, even the rather cheesy, cliché events like the Toga Bop or the paint party at Junction would be great with the right group of people, and I have no doubt such a group will exist at Oxford. It’s just disappointing that I’ll have to wait until I move in before I try and find them.

They’ll be the ones who, like me, avoided any major appearances on these offer holders pages; the silent majority who looked on with shocked laughter as the relative merits and drawbacks of getting a printer for your room were debated at length (at least a colour inkjet was dismissed out of hand).

So what do I expect from Fresher’s Week? Not much, if I’m honest. I hope I’ll meet some like-minded people, but chances are I’ll only really figure out who I specifically don’t want to be friends with.

This is the (Park) End

I know I’ll be heavily prejudiced against befriending those names that have clogged up my news feed over the past few months with their pointless posts and conversations.

Their online presence really has not endeared them to me at all. Now, there may be freshers out there reading this and thinking I’m just as much of an arsehole as those Facebook hacks; a self-righteous, holier-than-thou prima donna intent on pronouncing himself too cool to enjoy fresher’s week, unless of course it’s enjoyed in a post-modern, ironic, hipster sort of way. You’re probably not wrong. But hey, there’s gotta be more like me out there, right?

After freshers

Now Fresher’s week is over, I’m glad to say it wasn’t how i feared it would be. For starters, nights out were better than anticipated both in terms of quality and quantity (though Camera is still fucking dreadful). While I have yet to grace the halls of Warehouse (Matriculash here I come), Fresher’s Week gave me the chance to peruse almost all that Oxford had to offer in terms of night-life.

From the cheese floor of Park End, to the the sweat of Babylove at Cellar, to the glorious smoking area of Bridge, it was good to find that the two club nights scheduled on my welcome week timetable, plus the two that weren’t, were in fact half-decent, and not full of purple-suited wankers.

Are we human, or are we dancer?

In fact, the people, in general, were not what I’d expected either. Gone were the well-hated names of the fresher’s groups (word on the street is they hang out together, watch the Great British Bake-off, and talk about how great Oxford University is). In their place, I found that the vast majority of Oxford students were just… normal.

I was even slightly disappointed at the lack of characters to take the piss out of – the stereotype of a poor-hating, tailcoat-wearing Oxford student just seemed not to exist. Though I have yet to attend port and policy, so I’m not writing that stereotype off just yet.

However, there were some Oxford stereotypes which did turn out to be well-founded. My first night at Oxford, for example, began with wine, with 2nd and 3rd year PPEists, in a wood-panelled study, followed by a performance of jazz acapella by the Oxford Gargoyles in Hall.

Vibez

This was all accompanied by various sycophantic whispers among the freshers, such as “omg this is so Oxford!!” and “wow I need to Snapchat this!!!” , like they were a bunch of fucking tourists. Saying this though, I feel like my night was saved from Oxford traditionalist mediocrity by a group of St.Catz students, to whom I will be perpetually grateful.

Their vodka and house music-fuelled flat party seemed much more like a generic student experience, and I finally felt like I was at a university, rather than a posh team-building residential. But even then, the Oxford vibe couldn’t be completely concealed – the Dean soon came to shut us down.

So much loneliness

To wrap it up, Oxford isn’t all things old, and I’m definitely far from the lofty heights of BNOC to which I fervently aspire (though the academic year is yet young).

I’ve yet to meet anyone famous, or see anything resembling the opulence of Riot Club. But I’m satisfied with the friends I’ve made, and the nights out I’ve had. Even the much-dreaded Toga Bop actually turned out to be one of the best nights of Fresher’s Week, even if only because I got so drunk that the idea of wearing a toga no longer seemed so shit.