Blog and Comment Editor Harriet Jean Evans takes a look at a few points of etiquette for Freshers' Week and beyond.
Blog and Comment Editor Harriet Jean Evans debunks some myths about Freshers' Week - and confirms a few.
It still doesn't seem that long ago that I first opened the door to A062 at Goodricke College (it's now Vanbrugh offices). It looked out onto the lake and was pretty small but I just threw everything into my room. Despite some high nerves I knew what I had to do: I walked down to the end of the corridor, to the double room where I heard voices and dove right in. Five guys sat inside, who'd all known each other about twenty minutes, all expressing the familiar language of freshers i.e. What course are you doing? Where are you from? (What college are you from is added on nights out). I walked in and got the steady introduction, with everyone trying to figure out who was the one you knew you'd hate - and who you'd not leave the side of for the freshers' events.
Freshers' Week is pretty mad, there's a lot of new people and a lot of booze-fuelled events; however my Freshers' Week was a little more unusual than most.
Most people's corridors are a mesh of different personalities and there's no way you're going to get on with them all.
Well, our corridor was the exception.
We spent almost all of the week exclusively in each other's company (a trend that carried on through the three years). Every night out we'd prepare in the shared kitchen, we'd all go to your:shop for crates, we'd all get taxis into town together - and the morning after, gather ourselves into the kitchen and piece together what had happened last night. Slowly the jigsaw would fall into place as another person arose from slumber and added what they could recall, followed by laughter as it all came flooding back - or the odd moment of pure horror.
Getting involved in Freshers' Week is key! Get out of your room and say hello, have a few beers, get some numbers and see where it takes you. You don't want to be one of those stories people tell of the girl in room 253 who no one ever sees.
Emotions are flying and you're bound to feel homesick no matter how much fun you have, I know I did. In fact, of the seven of us on the corridor, five went home the first weekend.
One piece of advice I'll pass on to fellow young males out there is don't do what I did. Freshers' Week is a jungle, so don't try and be cool and mysterious by hanging back a bit: sexual politics favours the loud and aggressive, and shyness is a genetic cul-de-sac. That being said, be aware that the 2nd and 3rd years are all out and about and 'shag a fresher' will be in full swing - so keep your wits about you if you're looking for something a bit more meaningful than a booze-fuelled sweat-fest in some strange house in Tang Hall.
I'd give everything I have to relive that week again, you'll never meet and then forget more people in your life; many you may never see again but it's all good: drink, be merry and try and talk about something more interesting than your A level results!
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