Freshers’ Week. The week everything is thrown at you all at once. Sleep is non-existent, you spend your entire maintenance loan on nights out and society memberships, you can’t work out whether you’re in need of coffee or a Jaegerbomb. All that before lectures have even started! The idea of kicking off university life with a bang sounds really tempting to someone who leaves home for the first time (freedom!!!). However, before you accept an invitation to the fifth event of the night that you likely won’t recall in the morning, think about the lifestyle and rhythm that suit you best. Freshers’ Week is likely to be the most socially exhausting period of your university life, so it is crucial to navigate the chaos it brings whilst managing to keep your head screwed on.
Of course, Freshers’ Week is the perfect time to try new things. So, why not say yes to the Taylor Swift Society quiz night and put that Eras Tour knowledge to good use, or have a go at Body Soc’s energetic Zumba taster class? By opening the door to new experiences, you can start building relationships with other like-minded students. You never know, that person you meet at the XpressionFM Radio social night might be, in years to come, that ‘good old friend I met back at uni’…
This doesn’t mean that you should RSVP every event on the calendar. Despite what social media portrays, you cannot be everywhere at once. Meeting never-ending numbers of fellow students, daily, whilst striving to constantly be at your very best is a recipe for burnout. Together with the newfound peer pressure that university brings, you may find yourself attending events and parties that don’t particularly feel right or interest you. When everyone around you appears to have an endless social battery, it is easy to feel like you’re the odd one out who wants to retreat back to their room for a bit of Netflix and an early night! But that is not the case – everyone needs a break at some point. These timeouts, however, are not the moments people tend to share on Instagram or reveal at ‘meet and greets’. So, by choosing quality over quantity when it comes to your social calendar, you can lay the foundations for a healthy and well-balanced approach to university life. Mastering this balance between saying yes and no will hopefully also stop you from sleeping through your alarm once lectures commence!
By choosing quality over quantity when it comes to your social calendar, you can lay the foundations for a healthy and well-balanced approach to university life.
When you are put on the spot, declining an invitation can feel really daunting: are they ever going to invite me again? Will they think I’m really boring? Will they think I don’t like them? Practice will enable you to find ways of avoiding this situation. For instance, you can always refuse politely, give your excuses but always add that you definitely want to catch up at the next event. This way, you are leaving the door open for any future plans with that person.
Freshers’ Week is a time to have fun and meet new people, but remember that there is more to university than its first week. Unlike essays and coursework, finding friends or trying out new things does not come with a deadline.
