Moving to uni is scary, and everyone needs a bit of advice from people who have been there before. Apart from the obvious “bring teabags and condoms”, here’s some real advice that you should definitely follow. Definitely.
Rinse that Freshers’ Fair, rinse it!
Don’t bring anything with you; all can be found for free at the Freshers’ Fair. Take your goodie-bags; this is the stationery equivalent of trick-or-treating without the need for pissing on someone’s car.
Don’t buy a single book.
That £1000 book list they sent you? Bin it. In first year especially, professors are likely trying to flog their own book for £60 – a book which should really be available in your uni library if it’s that integral to your course. After a few weeks, it becomes plainly obvious which books you do actually need to read and which ones are best used as doorstops (all of them).
Reading Week isn’t actually for reading.
Oh, you thought it was for…? Nahhhhh Reading Week is like half term but the government kinda pays you for it; at least in your freshers’ year.
Plates are for bumders.
It might take you a while to realise, but the tediosity of washing dishes is probably the worst thing about not living with your mother anymore. Solve this by just using newspaper as a plate and simply binning it afterwards – also, stop turning up your nose like you’ve never done it in a fish n’ chip shop. You’re basically just following British tradition.
Do not volunteer for academic stuff.
Glamorous as it may sound, being a Course Rep is not guaranteed to catch you the pussaaay. In fact, you will probably risk losing all friends with your annoying emails about the correct levels of noise in communal areas. People become a little more accepting of your brown-nosing ways in final year, save it for then.
If you don’t like someone, move on.
Freshers’ is the one week of your life where you can walk into a group of entirely unknown people and introduce yourself without looking like a complete dork. However, after that week things tend to get cliquey pretty quickly, so make sure you’re in with a decent crowd who you reckon you could spend the next 3 years of your life with by the end of September. No pressure.
Improve international relations.
Generally, international students like to keep to themselves. Maybe it’s because they like to talk about us in their native language, or maybe it’s because the majority of British freshers are actual arseholes who can barely do up their own shoelaces without having a preparatory shot of vodka. I say make friends with these guys; they always attend the lectures and make loads of notes because their parents have to pay full price. Even if you don’t manage to solve world conflicts, you will at least get invited to their house in paradise sometime.
Work on your claim to fame.
With hundreds – possibly thousands – of students beginning their further education at once, someone in your year is going to be famous. Everyone loves making a quick £5k from a kiss-and-tell with Hello magazine, so why not increase your chances of hitting the jackpot by just shagging them all?
Buy bigger clothes.
You’re going to struggle to buy clothes on your student loan, and you’re going to struggle even more to fit into your size 8 jeans after a month of constant cider, kebabs and lie-ins. My advice is to plan ahead and buy everything one size up so the Freshers-Stone isn’t so much of a shock to your abysmal bank balance.
Don’t expect your relationship to last.
Also, don’t assume that by half-way through your degree you’ll even want it to. There’s a reason that no one marries their childhood sweetheart anymore, and that reason is uni. And Facebook. But mostly uni.
Don’t invite the live-at-home student to your party.
They literally never turn up.
Don’t believe Facebook.
When I first got to uni, I found that it wasn’t the 24/7 party I thought it would be, but everyone else at seemed to have found the 24/7 party at different universities. I got upset, flicking through their Facebook updates that told of endless fun and debauchery. Turns out, those same friends I was stalking felt exactly the same when looking at my updates. Don’t get caught in the “my uni is crazier than yours” boasting that will fill your timeline from now until exam-time.
You’re going to get homesick.
And you’re going to pretend you’re having the time of your life on Facebook.
Get an internship.
You can’t rely on having gone to a good uni to get you a good job – it won’t. You can sit in your red-brick taking the piss out of Bolton University students all you want; if they’ve got experience and you haven’t, guess who’s going to get the role? If your uni offers a sandwich-year, take it like a group of third years takes the piss out of your stupid neon tutu.
The further I’ve gotten into the world of work the more I’ve realised that literally no one gives a toss which uni you went to as long as you can down a pint. Similarly, unless you want to go into something specialised such as a science-based career, the subject you chose doesn’t matter either (otherwise Philosophy degrees wouldn’t exist).
Suss out the exam technique.
Just as in GCSE and A-Level, for your degree there will be certain structures, buzz-phrases and techniques that will secure you top marks. My general plan was to learn the basics of an economic theory, Google for summaries of counter-arguments and memorise 6 or 7, then spend the entire exam trying to bend my essay to make the quotes relevant. Works a treat. Still have no idea about Economics.
Sort out your work-life balance.
For the vast majority of you, your first year doesn’t count, and you only need to get 40% to pass. Therefore there is really no reason for you to actively try to get any more than 40%. First year is the only year of your life where the entire world will not look down on you for doing sweet fuck all; enjoy it.
ThatSquirrel 
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