It’s time we stopped moaning about lectures during Freshers’ Week

We came to uni for a degree


From the moment they first arrive at the Warwick campus, the humble fresher seeks nothing more than the opportunity to party and meet new people.

However, many have found themselves asking the same question on the morning after the Freshers’ Welcome Party: “Why on earth am I getting up at 9am on the first Monday of uni?”

It just doesn’t make sense. You’re tired, hungover, and you don’t even know where you’re going. How can you be expected to function in these torturous conditions?

Well, I would argue that that is exactly what you signed up for. People complain about how much better university would be if there wasn’t a degree attached. But surprisingly enough that’s exactly why you’re here, to study. To make good on all those hours of work you did throughout school and the time you acted as a grown up in a school for children.

Do you really think that you’re going to make friends for life, be independent and discover yourself all during Freshers’ Week? You’re going to have a whole three years of lectures, so you may as well get used to it now.

Ask anyone who’s been through it. In many cases, the friends you make in Fresher’s Week won’t be the ones you will keep in touch with for life. Most of them will end up being a stolen kiss, an anonymous phone number, or a genital wart in your distant memory. So don’t kid yourself, we’ve all spent our entire lives trying to make friends, so you should be good enough at it by now. You can still get your student loans worth of people skills, even with that 10am on a Monday morning.

If you really wanted to find yourself, or be away from your parents, you would be smoking weed in a Himalayan village, racking up the air miles on their credit card behind their back. However clearly you decided that the previous scenario wasn’t for you. You’re a responsible, academically oriented human being with possibilities and crippling student debt.

You need the job this degree will get you, so start strong by going to your lectures and stop complaining. I get that seven hours of “An introduction to feminist theory” would ruin anyone’s week. But you wanted a degree, so go out and get it.

We’ve all been through the first week of lectures and felt like we were going to throw up at any mention of the word “Moodle.” We also felt the regret and instant terror, when we caught a glimpse of our previous night’s chirpse, sitting in our first seminar. But please understand that those instances aren’t new to Freshers’ Week, and it won’t be your only chance to go out.