Freshers Week – Day By Day

This time last year, when I was all excited about starting uni, one of the most exciting – and nervewracking! – prospects was Freshers’ Week. I was excited for the freedom – the partying and settling in and meeting new people – but I was also worried that I’d hate the parties, and I wouldn’t settle in, and I’d hate everyone I met. From what I’ve heard from others, their experiences have been very much the same, so I’m here once again to try and soothe a few more nerves any prospective students may have about Freshers’ Week.

On paper, it sounds great – a week (or two, at some unis, and actually three weeks at mine!) of partying and activities and getting to know people, with a few taster lessons of your course but nothing too intense, and time to settle in, get used to living away from your parents and take those tentative baby steps into the big wide world of suddenly being an adult.

Then you start to think about it, and the doubts start to creep in. What if everyone hates me? What if I end up alone in my room on the first night, crying and wanting to go home? What if people don’t like me because I drink too much/don’t drink/don’t want to go out every night? These worries are all normal, and anyone who tells you it’s abnormal to have these worries is lying through their teeth.

Before I started uni, I went on The Student Room and found loads of conflicting threads, and came to one basic conclusion – Freshers’ Week is the Marmite of university life. From what I read, you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it. The threads were full of people saying “I have no friends, I hate it here, I don’t drink, I want to go home” – and, conversely, there were people posting drunk threads about what a great time they were having and how they couldn’t believe they’d been missing out on this for the last eighteen years of their lives. It didn’t seem like there was any middle ground. However, my experience proved that wrong.

My Freshers’ week was enjoyable. It wasn’t incredible and amazing, but it wasn’t bad at all. The great thing about Glyndwr is that we had three weeks of Freshers – pre-Freshers, Freshers and Re-Freshers. This meant that there was something for pretty much everyone to do, regardless of whether they liked drinking or not.

I’m going to be brutally honest and say that there is a lot of drinking at uni, particularly during Freshers’ Week – but if you’re teetotal, you won’t have a terrible time by any means. I have a few friends who drink very little, and I think they all enjoyed their Freshers’ week too. If you don’t go in there expecting one week to change your whole life, you won’t be disappointed.

Don’t worry too much about not making friends immediately during Freshers. Chances are you won’t have started your course yet, so the only people you’ll know will be your flatmates. If you’re lucky, like me, and you have great flatmates, you’ll get on with them and have a whale of a time. If you’re not so lucky, you and your flatmates may not be so compatible, but don’t give up hope! If things are beyond salvaging and you know you won’t be happy with these people, contact your university’s accommodation services team and request a room change. It may cost a bit, but it could be worth it!

So I’m going to do a bit of a day-by-day on what my Freshers was like, and what kind of things you’re likely to do/encounter throughout the week(s). Stay tuned!

Well… that escalated quickly.

I don’t know quite what I thought the first week of uni would be like – perhaps a bit of a “settling in” period, a time where things are quite relaxed so you can get your bearings, nothing too hard or strenuous, just a few acting exercizes to get us warmed up and things like that. So, there’s an audition on Friday, for which we have to prepare a piece from Blood Brothers (a play I’ve never studied because I was in a higher set for GCSE, so we did “An Inspector Calls”), and a song. I live in halls and while I love singing, I’m not sure my flatmates would appreciate me belting out a big musical number to practice at any hour of the day. I’m hoping we’ll get a chance to have a practice some other time, because otherwise I could make a fool out of myself!

I’m not hoping for a main part or anything like that. I’m a first year, there’s about 60 of us on the course spread over 3 years and very few main parts, so it’s fairly obvious the big roles will go to the third years, which I think is how it should be – I’d be so annoyed if I was a third year, and a first year waltzed in and got a big role at my expense (although I guess that’s showbusiness!). I’ll be fine in the chorus, especially because I don’t know the play at all and it’s not one I’m particularly fanatical about (if it was RENT or Wicked or something like that, I think I’d be thinking a little differently!). If I can’t get a spot in the chorus, and when there’s so many people that seems like a real possibility, being tech would be just as cool, especially if they need people for costume or make-up. Since I’ve started doing face-painting, I’ve discovered a new love for costuming and stage make-up, even though in this play it’ll just be normal stage make-up.

So, it’s not exactly going to be an easy first week – not that I want it to be! I want it to be jam-packed and fun, but not too tiring. I’ve explained about the issues with my back, which should make things a little easier when it starts playing up so I don’t just run away and sit down randomly, they actually know where I’m going. It’s playing up again, which is a pain – literally! – and I’m not entirely sure why, because it still doesn’t feel like bone or muscle pain, even though they’ve said that’s what it is. I’m not registered with a doctor up here either, so it’s a little tricky to get anything done really. I’ve got plenty of painkillers though.

There’s been lots of stuff going on, and a few things going wrong with finance etc, so all those creases have to be ironed out, but d’you know what? I’m excited for the year ahead. I think it’s going to be crazy and jam-packed and I’m anxious not to plan anything in advance – I’m already hoping that fate will be on my side for things planned for the rest of this year, what with Idina Menzel in two weeks and then War Of The Worlds the week before the show (eek!) – so I think it’s nose to the grindstone time; better get working hard to secure my future!