The 8 Rules Every Fresher Should Follow

By Student Cribs | June 24, 2022 | Reading Time: 7 minutes

Freshers week is regarded as one of the most important weeks of your uni life when it comes to settling in, making friends and putting yourself out there! The transition from your familiar and cosy home to a buzzing campus with a mass of unrecognisable faces can be a nerve-wracking experience, so it’s no surprise why many freshers can feel confused about how to make sure they’re first week is a memorable one! Through trial-and-error, many students eventually find their feet, but here are some tips to kickstart your Uni journey.

Social Media Social Media Social Media

Utilising social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are great ways to keep in touch with new friends (and also helps remind you of whose face goes with what name!). Being active on social media makes you easily accessible for your new friends to get to know you, whilst also being a quick way for you to keep updated on what everyone is up to. Social media on Freshers Week is your best friend, so add people up on snapchat, follow them on twitter and get liking their insta posts!

Beware of the Freshers’ Flu!

The first week can feel like a non-stop social with plenty of events, clubs and bars to explore in the night and then having to scramble for breakfast the next day, throwing away the remnants of fast food cheesy ship and chicken nuggets, recovering and then doing it all over again as soon as the evening hits. With this, comes the inevitable “freshers flu” due to the likely combination of alcohol, mixing with big groups of people, junk food and a lack of sleep. It’s important to give yourself a lil’ detox as you go through the week, such as drinking your weight in water and allowing yourself plenty of rest with some wholesome meals in the fridge (it’s probably worth bringing to frozen meals from home for the first week!).

Avoid scams and dodgy events

A case of the FOMO can push us all into buying tickets and passes into a whole range of events – even the ones that don’t particularly interest us. As much as it’s great to be open and go with what the majority of people want to do, you have got to make sure it doesn’t leave you out of pocket! Buying tickets online from Facebook can be risky business, the legitimacy of tickets can more or less be identified by looking at the profile in which the person is selling their ticket. 20 year old Fred from Surrey who studies Geography at the same Uni as you and shares a few mutual friends, is likely to be more a legitimate person to buy from over an account whose location is unknown and has an undeveloped profile. It’s best to avoid this altogether, so try to keep an eye out for what people are initially interested in and buy those tickets.

Always carry cash or loose change

This is to avoid any awkward situations of owing people money or having to ask people to pay you back. Situations such as taxi rides, buying drinks or snacks, going out to eat etc can be awkward when you either have a £10 note or no cash at all, so try and have some loose change to contribute your fare of an amount to avoid this dilemma. Having PayPal or Uber Split is also helpful.

Never pressure yourself to follow a crowd

The key to enjoying uni is finding some friends to experience it along the way with, although it might feel like a safe bet sticking with a group of people hoping it works out even though you’re not especially keen or don’t feel like you can be yourself with them may be something that simply won’t work in the long run. Always be friendly to people, but also keep searching for opportunities to find new people if you’re still not sure!

Join a society, but just one is enough!

Your University is likely to host a society fair on campus, which you should 100% check out to explore the range of activities you can involved in. What’s great about societies is not only do you get to expand on something you’re passionate about or begin something completely new to you, but it’s an excellent opportunity to meet people from different years, courses and accommodation, so widening your social circle and being able to add your efforts into the society onto your CV is doubly beneficial!

Be friendly, but don’t be clingy

Making a new friend is an exciting experience, particularly if you both hit it off really well as the start of the week, but it’s important for not only yourself, but your friend as well for you to not be overly clingy. It’s important to branch out and make other friends as well, plus equally important to let a friendship naturally develop and not get too intense from the very greeting. Additionally, it can be a great support to have friends from home attending the same university, as you can all mingle with new groups together, but do try to widen your horizons by meeting new people, and not isolating yourself to just the same people you’re already familiar with.

Pre-drinks are mingling central!

Getting involved and mixing at pre-drinks is great tactic to make some more friends for the night ahead – people will be excited and in anticipation of the evening so take advantage and get talking to them! Also it’s a bit more of an ideal situation to get to know the people you’re heading out with before you head to a club and end up having to shout over the loud noise trying not to spill your drink.