Fresher’s week is the one thing that has been on our mind’s since we got our results. After the initial relief of getting into university, I think it’s safe to say that we all relaxed a little bit and began to think more about the party side of our new beginning. We’ve all been told stories from our older siblings, and possibly even our parents, about the times they shared with their new friends’, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and adjusting into the new settings. Fresher’s week is a big deal!
Frankly, most of us are completely fed up of being on holiday! The anticipation is killing us, and social networks are testing our patience. Page after page is being created for a multitude of events and offers for students, reeling us all in. However, the pages have been extremely informative and overall very reassuring. It has been such a great way for us all to meet new students, ask questions about our courses, and about our accommodation, but one subject definitely comes up the most: Fresher’s week. It seems like we’re all completely overexcited, like kids waiting to go to Disneyland for the first time. Past years give us so much promise, we want our year to be the one that no one forgets. We want to create memories that we can tell the future generations.
For a lot of us, it’s the perfect way to reinvent ourselves. We’re diving head first into unknown territory; we’ll be seeing an infinite amount of new faces, living with strangers and starting anew, wiping the slate clean of our past selves and creating someone brand new. The thought can be inspiring. Obviously, we’re all expecting the initial awkwardness. It’s a given that we’re all going to be extremely nervous, that we’ll have butterflies fluttering around our stomachs’ and maybe the odd case of nervous vomiting.
It will be such a big change from what we’re all used to and it will be hard at first. We all want to make a good impression, especially in front of our flat/housemates, and this could lead to some fairly awkward situations. However, we all know the secret to breaking the ice; opening up the cheapest bottle of tequila that we can possibly find and doing shots until we all know each other’s secrets. ALCOHOL! Of course liquid courage is going to play a major part in this sacred week.
We’re all sitting on the edge of our seats, excited for the pre-drinking, going out and partying as hard as we can. All of us want the sweaty rooms, the inappropriate dancing, the smell of stale beer and lynx deodorant in the warm thick air of the clubs. Some of us might be lucky enough to lock eyes with a six foot tall, dark haired hunk, and then continue to have steamy make out session under the flashing fluorescent lights of the dance floor. One or two of us may possibly end up in the beds of strangers, regretting everything we did the night before but that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it? However, I’m sure that the majority of us will be reluctantly welcoming a fair amount of hangovers that will most likely leave us bed-bound with a wet flannel on our foreheads, sipping strong black coffee from a bucket sized mug. These are the common expectations.
This week is going to be the first stepping stone of our long three year journey, and it is going to start us off with a bang. These high expectations could unfortunately lead to disappointment. We all do it: we’re all overthinking it and creating ideal scenarios in our imagination and this may be leading us into a week of dissatisfaction. For all we know, we could drunkenly spend all of our money on the first night, or get the hangover from hell leaving us too ill to party for an entire week.
We’ve got to go into this with an open mind, keeping in mind that we are on our own now and we’ve got to be sensible. Luckily, this is all very new to the majority of us so we’ll all be in the same boat and able to help each other out. Solidarity sisters! We need to stick together especially if we get homesick: due to personal experience of three years in boarding school, I can assure you that an adjustment period is essential at the beginning of each new term. We’re all going to be so busy in the first week or so, and that will catch up with us sooner or later – our sleeping patterns will be completely messed up, living with other people can be hard, you have to learn the boundaries and that takes time, finding our feet in an unknown town is going to be especially difficult…
Our lives are going to be turned upside down and we will all need time to adapt. The partying may be a welcome distraction but there will come a rainy Sunday afternoon when you’re sitting in your pajamas with nothing good to eat but stale cereal, missing your parents’ cooking and the real comfort of your own home. Make sure you squeeze your parents extra hard before they leave because you’ll miss them more than you’d expect.
So overall, if any advice needed to be given it should be that social networks are the perfect way to meet other students, to find your housemates in advance, and to find out all the information you need. We must all appreciate the time that we have left at home, being cooked for and having your washing done for you, these are all luxuries we will miss. Most importantly though, we must all be excited as hell for Fresher’s week because we will no doubt have the time of our lives!
Are you nervous about Fresher’s? Or do you have a Frsher’s week horror story? Tweet us @HerCampusCCCU
*Disclaimer: Her Campus CCCU does not coldone binge drinking or excessive consumption of alchohol. We also do not coldone sleeping with strangers. Be safe, be secure and be happy*