A Fresher’s Guide to Week 5

The Freshers’ feeling is over. Reality has kicked in. Your flat mates aren’t who you thought they were – they have indeed turned out to be cutlery thieving sex-addicts who don’t know how to empty a bin. It’s getting harder and harder to justify a Tuesday night sesh and you’re snowed under with spam emails from the 1000 societies you joined during Freshers’ – but you’re too polite to tell them to stop.  Student life isn’t as easy as it is cracked out to be.

The crux of this realisation is that now, real essays are due and you begin to doubt whether you are doing any of this right.

The first essays can seem overwhelming, along with what feels like copious amounts of reading. Some academic journals are as difficult to understand as Donald Trump’s ludicrous policy proposals.  But a rigorous ‘Training in Good Academic Practice’ is sure to get you clued up – primarily by informing you that you are a fraud and that nothing you could possibly say in the world could be deemed original. And if you don’t reference correctly, your life is over. Basically.

In an attempt to conquer the essays ahead you decide to voyage to the library in search of quality material. There, awkwardly perched on a couch (because all of the desks were taken) you set about the task of doing some intense work. It’s crucial that you unzip your bag carefully so as not to disturb the peace and to avoid the murderous glares of those who seem to be very engrossed in the matrix of their Macs – developing theories of quantum physics or calculating the precise date of the worlds end, by the looks of it.

It is a very official environment. Like the dancefloor after a party, the library is filled with sad deflated balloons, just sniffling away the last ailments of fresher’s flu. Even at this point, it’s not an unusual occurrence for practically a whole lecture theatre to burst into fits of coughing every five minutes, after one patient finally makes the bold move to rasp first. I’m convinced half of the people here are actually dying.

On the subject of life-threatening ordeals – it’s most definitely gotten to the stage where you have learned that a night at the Union is never a good idea before a 9 am grammar lecture and that trying to read literature at 3 am never works. But every experience has a lesson behind it, right? Positive thoughts.

Now that you’re in the Bubble, you’re getting into the swing of things and maybe by Christmas you’ll have it all figured out. In the meantime, don’t stress, because Raisin recovery has finally commenced! You can bask in the glow of happy post-Raisin memories- assuming your academic parents didn’t come on to you, or you haven’t been in such a state in front of them that you can no longer look them in the eye. One step at a time. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Happy Reading Week!

Comments

comments