10 things that will definitely happen in your freshers’ term

You're about to become a uni fresher –and we’re afraid that means you’re also going to become a walking cliché. Do you recognise yourself here? Did we miss any embarrassing fresher milestones? Let us know in the comments below.

Brace yourself for a plague of sexy Smurfs.

1) Answering the same questions over and over

In those awkward early days, when you’re desperately trying to meet people you mesh with, you will find yourself asking and answering the following. Over and over. Until you become a fresher robot.

“Where are you from?”

“What A-levels did you do?”

“What course are you doing?”

“DID YOU TAKE A GAP YEAR?”

2) Getting fresher’s flu

You. Will. Get. Ill.

It is a scientific certainty.

With all those different students descending onto one campus, with all their different germs from different places, flu-ey microbes are going to meet each other and BREED. Combine that with the drinking, lack-of-sleep and general swapping of various bodily fluids with other freshers, and sickness is inevitable.

3) Getting homesick

It’s the hidden illness of freshers’ week. Students carefully conceal their symptoms with big smiles, drinking games and… yes… the occasional fancy dress mask. But despite the fact most of you will get homesick, you will think you’re the only one. You’re not! We can guarantee that everyone is secretly ringing home most nights too, crying to their parents about how much they miss the dog. Yes, even that really confident girl in the room next door.

4) Shite fancy dress

Students like fancy dress. A lot. And there is no fancy dress idea that they haven’t already done to death. You’ll find yourself spending silly money on these torturous themed evenings out of fear of not being ‘a laugh’. Whether it’s a sexy cat, or a sexy camouflage army person, or a sexy schoolgirl or a sexy… get the point? Or there’s the ‘wacky’ Where’s Wally, or the wacky smurfs, or the wacky Oompa Loompa – you won’t be able to escape cliched and bollocks fancy dress.

5) The five-minute best friend

The first days of uni are a strange time, where you cling to people just because you’ve spoken to each other. Whoever you happen to chat to first on that awkward first night becomes your ‘buddy’ and you nervously go dancing together and say, “I was going to go to the fresher’s fair, do you want to go please? OK then, let’s go together, that’s great.”

You can’t help but think: I don’t really have anything in common with this person. Or: they’re a bit weird. Or: They’re nothing like my friends back home and I kind of want to die inside.

Eventually – thankfully – you soon both meet Your People and part ways. But for the next three years you’ll both be plagued by awkwardness whenever you bump into each other.

6) Random where-the-hell-am-I? moments

You’re having fun, getting on with new people, have found your way around campus – when suddenly…

WHERE THE HECK AM I? AM I AT UNI? IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?

And then you recover, and brush off the weird feelings, and go back to having fun and enjoying your lectures when….

SERIOUSLY, WHERE AM I? IS THIS REAL?

7) Helping a new friend battle alcohol poisoning

You’ve only known each other a few weeks and yet…now you’re carrying their vomit-covered limp body into the back on an ambulance. Or, in milder cases, having to undress them, put them to bed in the recovery position, and then run away when they start projectile vomming all down themselves.

Then, of course, there’s the inevitable alcohol-related breakdown, where you spend most of your night mopping up their drunken sobs, as they wail: “…I…just…don’t…know…why…I’m…crying…but….I’m…sad.”

8) The 3am fire alarm

It’s the middle of the night, and your hall’s fire alarm has gone off. Again.

And you all have to huddle together in the carpark, waiting to be allowed back in. Again.

And someone has come out mid-shower, wearing a towel. Again.

And it was caused by a drunken idiot (you) making late-night cheese on toast. Again.

9) Somebody gets mumps

There’s nothing funnier than someone getting mumps, unless it’s you who gets it of course.

One day in halls, someone’s face will blow up like a hamster, and you all point and laugh until you realise how contagious it is. Cue panicked phonecalls home: “Mum? Mum! Listen, did I have my MMR? The jab! The MMR jab! What do you mean you can’t remember?”

10) Joining EVERYTHING at the Freshers’ Fair

You go there with the best of intentions… and greedy for free stuff. You come out with pockets stuffed full of sweets, a toastie machine, a new bank account in order to get the toastie machine – and lots of empty promises made on sign-up sheets.

Are you really going to go to the communist society meetings? Seriously?

And, circus skills? Are you really going to go to the regular 9am rehearsals on Saturday morning?