*May vary.
The Big Things.
1) Move in. Pile up your boxes and bags and suitcases and your bits and pieces into the car. Drive x many miles until you finally arrive. Be anxious or excited or a bit of both and maybe you don’t want to go anymore or maybe you’re incredibly eager. Your parents anxiously hover around in your room, they check: the bed/ storage space/ will you be warm enough/ will you be cool enough/ how far are you from the kitchen/ how far are you from the laundry room.
You say to them: yes I’ll be careful/ I’ll go introduce myself to others in a bit/ No don’t go knock on next door please/I will remember to lock my door/ No seriously don’t go next door. Maybe you want some time to yourself to unpack anyway, but the minute you go you’ll probably feel bad. Until you get a text saying ‘Met the girl next door – go say hi!’
2) Meet people. University students all moving in are probably some of the friendliest people I’ve come across – not specifically, but generally. Everyone is in the same situation and thus you all just want to make friends – anyone and anything will suffice when you know no one and are in unfamiliar territory. Even I, a self-proclaimed people-hater, find myself friendly and trying to meet as many people as possible.
You collect names and numbers like crack to give yourself a ton of options because you don’t know who you’re going to be good friends with. Go everywhere with different people all the time and tag along and turn up randomly at other people’s gatherings – but that’s okay, it’s just more people to add to your First Week Social Web.
Alternatives: Stay in your room and refuse to meet people, come out once and never be seen again, (there’s one in every hall.)
3) Go Party. University is prime time for crazy partying because LOL at Higher Level education, um, we can binge drink and study at the same time by this point okay? No, that was a joke. But Fresher’s Week or Fortnight or Forever is again, a time to party. Why? Perhaps it’s just to fill the quota of a “college student,” or, referring to (2) an easier way to meet people.
Pre-drink in fun kitchen and room and common room parties. Maybe you won’t even end up leaving the kitchen. Be drunk by the time you’re lining up to get in and then suddenly, oops, 9AM lecture WHAT’S UP!
Optional: Pass out, get into a fight, sleep with someone, be too drunk to go back to your own room and have to do a walk of shame, post-drink back at your halls.
4) Have a cute in-night. Once you get sick of partying – or are just not up to it anymore, - you will have a cute night staying in. You will round up some of your friends and have a cute movie night. One of you will cook a meal and you will sit in a room and have a nice sleepover. You will watch a sweet movie and just have a nice time. You will feel adorable and twee and your perfect night shall not even be ruined by the drunkards stumbling around outside throwing up in their bins.
5) Join clubs or societies. Universities always have loads of societies and clubs, from the most common everyday clubs, such as the standard sports ones, or the Food society, to the obscure ones such as the Glass Juggling Society or the Cow Appreciation Society. You will be overloaded with enough flyers to paper your modestly-sized room and accidentally find yourself promising yourself to every single society because you’re just too nice to say no, and then you find yourself juggling glass every Thursday – hey, at least you now have a cool trick to show your friends back home.
6) Have your first lectures and seminars. You will be late. Hey – we all get lost, it’s cool. You will open the squeaky door and peer in and faces like sunflowers will turn to stare at you. You will ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ your way down an aisle because of course, the only available seat is at the front. At the end of the aisle.
Maybe they’ll be vastly different than what you’re used to. Maybe you’ll show up hungover (likely) or still drunk (also likely) in freshers’s week. Maybe you will have so much work already that you already want to drop out. Maybe you’ll adore them and your coursemates and you’ll never want to leave the lecture hall or let go of your coursemates because you’re all so passionate about what you’ve chosen to study, aren’t you?
The Little Things.
(7) Eat ice cream in your room. Alone. Maybe it’s whilst you’re doing homework or whilst you’re lonely and sad and drunk. Maybe you just fucking want some good ice cream because um, Tesco brand value ice cream is a pretty good deal and it tastes good. Maybe you will even find a friend and you can eat your ice cream alone together. Ice cream is so a staple college student food, get over it.
(8) Run out of _______. It will happen. You will be overcome with an intense craving for cereal. You will go to the kitchen and pour out a generous amount of your mouth-watering grainfood-brand of choice. You will open the fridge and – wait. What the fuck. There’s no milk left? Shit.
(9) Fall In Love With Everyone. So many new people. Depending on where you came from and where you now are, you may fall in love with every attractive stranger you see and then you’ll map out various scenarios where you ~casually~ bump into each other and – then you realize you’re a creep and you never actually see them again.
(10) Have an intense congregation in the corridor. If you are staying in halls, there will be nights where you all curl up on the floor taking up room and talk deep meaningful shit. You may all end up throwing shoes at each other and having intense battles with the ‘Caution wet floor sign.’ Either way, it’s all part of the college experience in the first week and you will no doubtedly have many more fun nights like these for the rest of your time there.
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