Why First Years Should Be Banned From Campus

 *WARNING: If you’re a first year, DON’T READ THIS.* *If you are a first year and you have chosen to ignore my warning, then so be it, at your feet […]


 *WARNING: If you’re a first year, DON’T READ THIS.*

*If you are a first year and you have chosen to ignore my warning, then so be it, at your feet lay that decision. You probably won’t like what you’re going to read, but as you have read it, be a love and share it*

Freshers, be gone!

Now, I’m a third year. I know, the first thought that came to your mind when I said that was most likely something along the lines of an old man sat in his favourite chair, puffing a pipe, moaning about the youth of today. If you did think that, congratulations, you’re right. That’s exactly what being a third year is like.

I, of course, jest. Being a third year is a liberating experience. You are liberated from all the things that you once enjoyed and instead are awarded a season ticket for the library/Murray building. (Psst, to all those first years that don’t know, the Murray is the 24hr building on campus.) However, this season ticket doesn’t always guarantee actual use of these facilities. And that, friends, is why I have written this piece; it’s a plea to first years to, please, leave campus.

It is immensely frustrating to have to get up at 8am to guarantee a space on campus. Even more so when you didn’t get home until 2am as a result of essays/assignments/reports/dissertations and so on. The last thing I need when I miss my 8am alarm is to get to the library at 10/11am and find it full. Yes, full. Full of students who, like me, are doing their best to get through work.

You may wonder where my problem comes from? I take issue with the number of these students who are first years. Don’t think I can’t tell what you all look like. You huddle around that one laptop/computer station trying to work out how to use Webcat or, if you’re really ambitious, TDNet. And if you’re not doing that, you’ll be sure to do that other terribly endearing thing you love to do; stand around and talk loudly about how hard your 2 hours of lectures are, or how 2000 words is ‘more words than I’ve ever written ZOMFG’ or, even worse, have the audacity to moan that your cleaner woke you up. Your cleaner? As if your lives aren’t easy enough…

So, yes, first years… please, get off campus. Your work equals a massive 0% of your degree. You need 40% to pass. Why are you not reforming a queue at Sobar/Jesters/Bedford Place the moment you leave? It would do everyone a favour – I would retain the few shreds of sanity I have left, the library/Murray/campus would be a joyous palace of academia and, best of all, the monophonic drone of first years would be silenced. Wonderful.

I take inspiration from the great Martin Luther King Jr…. I have a dream. A dream, that one day this University will rise up and silence first years. That one day, we will sit together, united under our love of academia, and laugh first years off campus. Laugh them back to their halls, laugh at their sub 2000 word essays and their poor grasp of Harvard referencing. And we shall stand united, as students whose workload actually matters.

If that doesn’t work, then I propose we just build a large pen and throw some booze and beanbags in there. That’s what you all want, right? Of course it is.