Uni myths and missing home: everything you need to know about surviving freshers’  week (Edward Bettles)

As much as going to university can be one of the most exciting next steps and some of the best years of our young lives, leaving home and starting as a fresher can be really scary. In my first week, I was so homesick that I sobbed in the middle of the Bullring over a Subway sandwich that I was too nauseous to eat (I’m not ashamed that as a fresher I practically survived on Aldi Nutoka on toast). I didn’t really get on with my flatmates, but on the first night, I happened to bump into some really cool people who I’ve hung out with almost every night since. A few weeks later, we were putting deposits down on our second-year house together, and now this summer at home, they’re the people I’m feeling homesick over.

What I mean to say is that everyone’s university experience is different, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself to do everything you feel expected to do- it’s okay to find the first few weeks hard, but what’s important is to be kind to yourself so you can create the life at University that you’ve dreamed of. Make your room feel like home, find your people, join societies, and get to know Birmingham and Selly Oak. Laugh about the bin strikes, circuit laundry and the battles of Selly Aldi and the Circo queue. Romanticise study sessions with your friends with coffee from the library café or £8 pitchers from Joe’s bar. Try not to trip up the Teaching and Learning Building steps, and whatever you do, don’t walk under Old Joe when he chimes! Enjoy it! You’re only a fresher once!

You don’t need to do everything: freshers’ week at your own pace (Jennifer Sawitzki)

I had a great time as a fresher – so much so that I changed course just to do it all over again. Now that I’m finally going into my second year (after three years at Birmingham), I just about feel settled into my routine and this new version of myself.

So, as a veteran fresher, what did I learn? In hindsight, my (first) freshers’ revolved primarily around going out: initially during the famous freshers’ week, and then – once I’d recovered from the hangover – the week-long celebration preceding Halloween. 

Aside from realising that I shouldn’t have wasted thirty pounds on a wristband to Heidi’s (now Barbara’s for you younguns), my second freshers’ made me realise that all of my close friendships were solidified and became what they are now through non-clubbing and alcohol related activities. It’s the little things, like walking back to the Vale together, texting someone out of the blue, or knocking on their door to try and talk them out of their horrible situationship that they met at Rosie’s that bond you together for life. 

Drinking, as a social lubricant, often goes hand-in-hand with freshers’, but you can absolutely have a great (and cheaper) time without any Frosty Jack’s or Stefanoff. The pure adrenaline of freshers’ seems to put everyone into a more open, sociable, and equally skittish yet excited mood.

Embracing uncertainty and change (Lauren Henry)

Freshers’ week! Freshers’ year even – it certainly lasted a year for me. The best time to change your mind. And then change it again. Maybe even change it back not too long after that. The best time to change your course, change your friends, change your sport etc. etc. As a wise, old third year student – who also took a gap year so is extra-old now – there is no other time in your life where you will be so free of consequence. 

I am someone who did not take advantage of that fact, at least not fully. I did change and experiment with sports and societies and friends but, when it mattered most, I sadly dropped this fearless, unstoppable attitude. I did not change my course. From the start of first year I knew that it was not really for me, but I stuck with it regardless. I thought that I had to. I now know that I did not. And you do not either. 

Obviously, this is not a small decision, not a fun choice to be made flippantly with the change of the wind. Your course, which will one day be your degree, is very, very important. So important, that you should actually want to study it. Even if that means changing course half way through first year – better then than at the end of your second year, or worse, not at all.