A Freshers’ Guide From Someone Just as Blissfully Clueless as You: The First Week

8 hours ago

5 min read

Two smiling women stand in a doorway with arms outstretched, surrounded by cardboard moving boxes in a bright room.

Freshers week is scary, and it should be. You are thrust into a turbulent environment with expectations, desires, baggage and hopefully a yearning to make something out of it. If you were anything like me, you scrolled through video after video of what to bring, the Freshers’ cannon events, many an unhelpful anecdote, alongside some rare nuggets of genuinely good advice. There is no amount of preparation that will guarantee a perfect start to university. Whilst I don't care to give you a list of the perfect pans to buy from IKEA, I can help share my perspective, which may just ease your anxiety, heighten it, or at the very least make you feel less alone.

The First Day

The first day is for moving in. My parents are in a different country, but I've got my uncle and cousin to drag my rubbish bin bags full of clothes down the stairs to my room. As I descend these flights, I begin to think my flat is in the basement. Unfortunately, I am just on a hill and do indeed have windows. In the queue for the keys, I was already overhearing introductory conversations with awkward lulls threaded through them, and wondered who the first person I'll talk to will be.

When my family leaves and I am left alone in an empty room, I am hit with a wave of pressure. It was something I had carried in with me, before I even knew what was going to happen in the year. I already felt behind, like I had something important to be doing, and I had just gotten there. I shook the feeling off when I heard rustling in the flat. It was either mice or one of my new flatmates. Luckily, it was the latter - the mice would show themselves later. Little did I know this would become one of my closest friendships, and that we'd still be living together. We clicked immediately, rambling to each other out of nerves.

I was already hungry to meet as many as possible, so we went up the stairs and introduced ourselves to our neighbouring flats. Most of them were tired and uninterested, but I tried and that was enough. My other flatmate was an American exchange student who had already moved in (now a dear, dear friend), who said he was going to climb Arthur's Seat, only to mysteriously not return. Your first day certainly won't look the same but it might feel the same.

Freshers Planner ad with phone showing University of Edinburgh first week plan, sports fair, city icons, and Try it in Uni-Chat button.

Meeting New People

A few hours later there was a pizza party, and I went with my new flatmates and again spoke to people, asked the basic questions, tried to relate to something they said to keep the conversation going, and exchanged Instagrams. It's tiring, but exciting. I remember walking home with one of my flatmates and her shoes were squeaking. It really cracked me up, and even though we didn't know each other well, there was still something to laugh about. Those are the parts I remember the most fondly, not the fear that I would end up alone, or that I would never do enough, but my flatmate's squeaky shoes.

Five young adults in a kitchen laugh, raise glasses, and eat orange slices during a casual party.

Not everyone gets along with who they meet the first day, and that is totally okay too. You will cling onto whoever is first put in front of you. You need a sense of safety, but I would recommend putting that into something more predictable than new people who are going through their own beginnings, and are also likely putting on a front trying to figure out who they want to be at university. And that is not a criticism, more a reality of this stage of life. A comfort could be some music, a call with someone close to you, a photograph, or a good night out (maybe stave off this one as a coping mechanism though).

Flatmates

I've heard it all when it comes to flatmates: the lack of hygiene, the flatcest, the complete psychopaths, and sometimes just the pure dumb luck of it being okay. I will say, though, a common pattern is people bonding very closely with their flatmates during Freshers’. Something about the turbulence and not knowing how to turn your shared oven on properly brings people together.

I think it's a part of the university experience to get your heart broken by people you think will be your new best friends when some unimaginable friendship tragedy occurs. It might not happen to you, but if it does, that really does suck. But there are so many other people in university and so many more months. There is nothing wrong with opening yourself up to people, as long as you keep going when it doesn't work out. At the end of the day, these people can just be people you coexist with, but great friendships can blossom if you give them room to and take your time.

Societies and Going Out

You can already probably tell I had a side of neuroticism added to my freshers experience, with an unnecessary ambition to do as much as possible. I packed my first week with society events. I went and shot rifles, ‘dinner with a stranger’ society, and stood in line at a hot chocolate store for board games only to get turned away when it was too full.

The best part of this was that I was able to genuinely enjoy connecting with people - not even in a lasting way with most of them, but chatting about whatever I could think of and complaining about having to ask everyone what their degree is. What I started doing instead was asking what kind of pasta someone would be - mine was conchiglie. The point isn't to become best friends with everyone, it's to learn different things from different people, and let yourself click with a few who might just stick around.

Students in a lecture hall watch a Freshers Week presentation on a blue screen, with a few speakers at the front.

One of the reasons I stacked on so many daytime activities was that I wasn't going out every night. I had stopped drinking before university and was wondering if I could still have fun clubbing, and could meet people as easily. I met some girls at the ‘Dinner with a Stranger’ meet-up at the park, and went to Cowgate with them. Turns out I like dancing whether I have a cocktail in me or not. Although alcohol makes it easier to let your guard down and loosen up, I enjoyed learning to have fun and socialise without it.

Conclusions?

I went to bed every night thinking ‘what is my life right now?’. I do like pushing for change, but it does end up swallowing me up sometimes. Still, there were so many smaller moments that kept me hopeful, and putting myself out there left me genuinely proud of myself. The pressure I put on myself from the outset had its benefits, but it also had its costs. I pushed myself to constantly speak to people, try new things and adapt to whatever came at me, but it also left me with a heaviness when I was alone. I felt a constant dissatisfaction no matter how much I did, and it is something I am still trying to rework. Especially so early into Freshers’, things will change so much throughout the year. Not only circumstances but how you handle things and view them. So even though it is good to cast your net wide and make the most of it, grasping tighter won't make things mould to your hand. It'll be whatever you make it, so at least make it yours.