What advice would you give your fresher self?

15 Feb 2018

Ahh, your first night of freshers, sat on that creaky single bed, surrounded by your possessions but not yet feeling at home. Your stomach churns with emotion; excitement, anxiety, sadness, fear, and joy all mixed into one.

Whether you spent the night downing shots then drunk-crying on the girl from over the hall’s shoulder, shaking like a leaf locked in your dorm room, or anxiously cooking a meal for your eleven new flatmates, no doubt if you could go back now you would have a few wise words of advice to fresher-you.

We spoke to students near and far to hear what they would tell themselves if they could travel back to that fateful first night.

Don’t miss your first lecture

One final year student told Study International if she could bestow any advice on her fresher self it would be: “Don’t accidentally switch off your Monday morning 8am alarm and go back to sleep when you’ve got your first lectures at 9am.”

There is no waking a sleeping student. Source: GIPHY.

Make the most of it

“If I could go back I would tell myself basically to just go all out,” said a recent graduate. “I’d say, try a few new different things, and really enjoy it.”

Have more fun

Many students drink too much on their first night of freedom, and not the other way around. But this student said she wished she had had a little more fun and let go more during freshers.

Enjoy it. Source: GIPHY.

Her advice to her past self? “Go hard and not home.”

Avoid shots

On the opposite side of the spectrum, one second-year student told Study International she would tell herself to tone it down a little on day one.

Regret will sting the next day… Source: GIPHY.

“Don’t do shots on your first night and get hammered and make everyone think you’re a total idiot,” she said.

Don’t drink so much

Alcohol seemed to be a common theme when students and graduates looked back on their experience of freshers. One student said she wished she hadn’t had so much to drink on the first night as it spoiled it.

Maybe not the best idea… Source: GIPHY.

Look after your belongings

This student’s advice? “Don’t hide your ID in your bra.”

You will forget it’s there and you will have to go home only to find it was in your bra the whole time,” she said.

Watch out for the overdraft

Put plain and simple, one graduate said his most foolish mistake during freshers was to happily sign up to a student overdraft.

Now, tunnelled deep into that invisible money, he is struggling to make it back into the positive numbers.

“Don’t let it be an achievement to get yourself from minus money to $0,” he said.

Just know, you will never escape glitter

One student was full of advice, perhaps a sign of a fruitful social life: “Drink less, no glove = no love and at least try to make it to afternoon lectures.”

“Oh, and glitter will be found everywhere for the next three years whether you used it or not.”

Where is it even coming from?! Source: GIPHY.

‘Don’t eat the soup’

This graduate would offer no further explanation as to why he should not have eaten the soup. We can’t help but wonder what was in it…

Join a society

“You will meet so many more people that way,” one student told Study International. Instead of waiting for people to come to him, he wished he had made more of an effort in the early days to go and meet new people.

Advice to all freshers; remember every moment, take loads of pictures, join a society and try to stay awake in those 9ams (if you make it!)

— Shana Broaders (@Shaney_Baby) August 17, 2017