Your Guide to Fresher’s Week!
Fresher’s week can feel like the most important week of your first year of uni. Everything is new, exciting, and incredibly overwhelming, especially if you’ve moved to a whole new city (or even country) for university. It’s important to remember that Fresher’s is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t need to do everything, and you don’t need to do it all on the first day.
The first thing that we recommend doing is giving yourself a specific bit of time to unpack all of your bags and boxes and make your space somewhere that you’re going to feel comfortable. Universities will usually host plant or poster fairs to help you with this task if you didn’t bring any decorations from home.
While you might want to be out there exploring immediately, it’s worth sticking around your flat long enough to meet your flatmates and see if they have similar plans to you. It can be good to hang out in the common rooms of the flat with your laptop while you figure out your timetable and see if anyone will come out to join you.
Once you’ve figured out your timetable, make sure that you start showing up right at the start - it can be tempting to skip the first lectures focusing on exploring the syllabus, but they’re the perfect place to learn where to find the information that you’ll need in the future. They also provide a great chance to meet with some similarly minded people on your course.
You should also take the time to go on some of the tours that are available while you have a bit of free time - these can include campus tours, library tours, or gym tours. While there will be more of them running during Fresher’s week, they will still be running throughout the year so don’t worry if you miss them.
It can also be wise to discuss what your expectations of cleanliness will be for your flat with your flat mates. For some people they find it useful to have rotas or schedules for different tasks, or rules about when dishes should be cleaned, but keep in mind that everyone will be approaching this with a different history behind them, so don’t assume your standards will be the same.
Some other, less exciting things to consider during Fresher’s week include:
Exploring your local area on foot to help you prevent getting lost in the future
Finding your closest shops, or going further for the cheapest food
Finding some good, quiet places that you might want to study at
Registering with a new GP close to campus
The more exciting side of things is definitely the events that are on offer all week. In the mornings and afternoons you’re more likely to find events catering to the educational experience or encouraging more focused interests, such as Society Fairs, book clubs, or uni tours. During the evening, events tend to have a more party-like atmosphere, providing chances to socialise (and drink, if you are so inclined).
You may feel pressured to drink because of the atmosphere, but keep in mind that there are plenty of sober social events, and even if you are somewhere with drinks available, you can still have fun without alcohol. There are many reasons why someone might choose not to drink, including religion, health, or a lack of interest, so if you decide not to drink you won’t be the only one!
Make sure that you take the time that you need to rest in between busy days - there’s no point in packing your schedule if you aren’t going to enjoy what you’re doing because you’re dead on your feet. This could be as little as a half hour break to sit down and have a snack, or you could designate a day to do nothing but rest, whatever works for you is the best option!
Fresher’s week is supposed to be a chance for you to get your feet under you and meet some new people. It will probably be a bit overwhelming, but hopefully you will come out the other side of things with a better understanding of what you want to do in the coming months of university.
