It’s time everyone admitted it: Mature students have way more fun than freshers

UCAS reckon a quarter of all students in the UK are “mature”, but despite our sizable number we remain an oft-forgotten part of uni for many other students. However, far from being an out-of-touch wrinkle brigade, mature we’re the ones who really know how to party and do uni properly. If you’ve ever looked over at the grey-haired guy in your lecture theatre with pity, here’s why everything you think about mature students is wrong.

We don’t waste our nights out drinking crappy VKs

We don’t drink in the bars on campus and we don’t go to house parties either. We go to our favourite bars with our friends and drink nice wine or a nice cocktail which costs more than the bottle of vodka you’ve bought for ring of fire.

As the night goes on, we’re never the ones hugging the toilet in the Stumble Inn or waking up the next morning to find our tongues are blue from necking WKD all night. We party like it’s 1999 because we actually remember what is was like to party in 1999.

We can function remarkably well on little to no sleep

One power nap later and we’re back on it

We’ve all been there… going out for a couple of vinos on a Sunday evening seemed to be such a good idea until a couple of glasses turned into a couple of bottles, five Skittlebombs, a kebab and a taxi home at gone 4am. By the time you’ve unlocked the front door and sung to your cat it’s nearly 5am, and then the realisation hits you have a lecture in four hours.

If you’re a young’un it’s highly likely you’ll sleep through your alarm and miss your lecture. If you do manage to rise from your slumber, you may as well have stayed in bed because you look like a zombie waiting for its next feed and there’s no way you’re going to be able to understand anything your lecturer is saying.

Mature students on the other hand have had years of practice and wake up leaving enough time to cover their hangover face with Mac, grab a coffee (double shot) and arrive at their lecture looking like a respected member of society. Plus, our lecture notes are actually coherent.

Our friends have already completed their degrees

Having friends who are graduates (or soon to be graduates) is great because they’re able to give helpful feedback on our essays before we actually submit them. It also means they hold a wealth of knowledge and advice about all sorts of university-related stuff: it’s like having your own human Google.

The best thing is they know what not to do which leaves us in the enviable position of learning from their mistakes.

Universities and employers love us

Everyone thinks we’re mature, but we still find a dog wearing a nappy hilarious

That’s right, we get special treatment just because we’re mature. For university, this means we have different entry requirements which are more flexible and our applications are considered on an individual basis. We’re also able to apply to universities using life experience and previous job experience without having had any formal education.

When you graduate you’ll likely see a lot of job vacancies that require experience and qualifications. While young graduates will struggle with meeting these requirements, most mature students will have previous work experience which goes a long way in standing out among other applicants.

We won’t end up in a job we hate

Never wanted to be a DJ anyway…

When you choose your degree while studying for your A Levels, its impossible to know what you really want to do with your life. That’s why it’s so common to spend three years at uni on a degree, only to find you hate the job you’re doing six months after graduation and you’re 50k in debt.

Mature students though have already sampled the job market. We know what we hate and we actually know what we want to do because we have life experience. So when we choose our degree, we know it’s exactly what we want to do and we know it will be relevant to our chosen career path.

We’re not relying on our parents for money…

Need I say more?

…which means we can afford to drink Moët when we go out.