Your first year at university is always a time of learning and discovery. Mostly this is because you’ll be hard at work studying (probably). But there are also plenty of less academic things you’ll discover while adjusting to student life.
1. Am I Meant to Be Here?
Still learning your way around campus? There’s a good chance you’ll turn up at the wrong lecture/seminar at least once. Never mind… you might learn something unexpected.
2. FOOD WARS!
Nope, not food fights, but the conflicts which arise from sharing fridge space. Remember: always respect the integrity of other people’s cheese.
3. Rice on Toast
Your first year is a great time for culinary experimentation. Usually this is because you’ve run out of money and thrown together the few ingredients you have left (e.g., corn flake and broccoli crumble). But even Heston Blumenthal had to start somewhere.
4. Teetering Piles of Crockery
Who has time for doing the dishes anyway? Just try to clean up before the mould growing in that coffee mug gains sentience.
5. Making a Fashion Statement
The laundrette is a great place to try out a new ensemble once you’ve run out of clean clothes: simply throw on the three least smelly garments and hope for the best.
6. Deadlines!!
Douglas Adams once said: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” This is a sound you may soon learn to recognise.
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7. Just Resting My Eyes
If you do stay up all night to meet a deadline, or for less edifying reasons, then try not to fall asleep in lectures. And try not to snore if you do.
8. The Perils of Sleeping in the Nude
Some wise-guy will eventually set off the fire alarm in your student accommodation at four in the morning, forcing everyone to evacuate the building. At least you can make some new friends when huddled outside in the cold together.
9. There’s No Place Like Home
You might have spent the first eighteen years of your life trying to get away but you’ll soon miss familiar places and people from home. When did you last call your poor old mum anyway?
10. Existential Crises
Three months into that art history degree and starting to question your life choices? Wondering why you didn’t realise that philosophy classes would involve propositional logic?
Don’t worry. Everyone is similarly confused in their first year. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.