Freshers’ or Weekend Week is like the bridge between your past school life and the new university period. This phase promises to be incredibly exciting and engaging yet very nervous and super informative. What to do to survive this daunting transition into the new academic year without effort?Weekend Week will be full of many various feelings and emotions, activities and events, societies and clubs. However, don’t worry since all the newcomers successfully experience this period. If you prepare for this week properly, you will enjoy each moment, easily settle in, meet new friends, and just have fun. This week is created especially to make your first step towards the responsible life more pleasant and less painful. Here are some useful tips to consider when getting through this overwhelming and sometimes confusing week.
1. Brace Yourself and Get Ready for an Outstanding Year Ahead
Prior to arriving on campus, you need to gather useful information about your university in order to have an idea of what to expect. Read all of your welcome emails and docs, browse your university’s website (all respectful unis and colleges have a powerful online presence) and follow its various social media channels to keep in touch with the latest news, and find any helpful info about its structure, surroundings and inner system. Such a preparation will give you a chance to avoid being confused at the very beginning.
2. Work out a Budget
Make sure that you have enough money. You will have to budget carefully if you don’t want to be out of pocket in the first week. You need to leave your credit card safely in your room and avoid spending a great chunk of your budget on drinks and entertainments. Even if you’ve created an excellent plan, things can come up. That’s why you should turn to a plan B and find some paid work. Take into account that many universities discourage working while studying because it can affect your academic progress.
3. Make Friends and Play a Team Game
Try to keep a friendly relationship with your roommates and neighbors but don’t overplay, be yourself. Making friends can help to ease your living on campus. If you keep your door open, students will understand that you’re hospitable and positive-minded. As uni’s life means living with a group of people, it’s better to set yourself up for a team game: help your flatmates with cleaning, studying and many more, and you will definitely receive their help in return. Leading an ascetic life will complicate your Freshers’ Week and the whole academic year.
4. Sign up to Various Societies and Clubs
If you’re not sociable, you will have difficulty with your uni’s life. The more active you’re the more opportunities for self-improvement you have. Join up a rich variety of societies and clubs as they’re a brilliant way to meet new people and make your many dreams come true. There’re tons of freshers parties serving one more way to add more friends to the existing list. Attending such parties helps newcomers to socialize and hit it off.
5. Don’t Drink to Excess
Weekend Week consists of a number of events and parties where alcohol flows like water. For many freshers, drinking helps to calm nerves and ease the process of adaptation. Try to pace yourself. Those who are not able to control drinking should find other ways to entertain yourself. Otherwise, during the week you will be suffering from a hangover accompanied by a long-term headache and even partial loss of memory. Remember that if you don’t really want to go out every night, you don’t have to. It’s only up to you!
6. Focus on the Educational Side of the Week
Once you’ve settled, enroll on your course of study. Don’t worry as there will be always an opportunity to have fun but firstly you have to focus on the educational program. You can skip 2-3 lectures or seminars at the very beginning but it will be rather difficult to catch up even for 2 months. Make use of this introduction week to get your bearings, get acquainted with your course tutors and enter into your timetable details. Make sure to set your alarm! Don’t forget that in the worst case scenario there is the help with your assignment.
7. Take Advantage of Student Mentors
There will be a good support network of mentors to help you settle in and get used to local rules. Ask for help if you need to. Mentors can give you practical advice, recommend something or just put you on the right track. When preparing for Freshers’ Week, unis and student networks make effort to cater to the needs of all the categories of newcomers: international ones or from the local area, mature freshers, etc. For such student groups, there are a number of specific social events that can come in handy them.
8. Just Enjoy This Week
Freshers’ Week won’t last forever. It gives you a chance to be as crazy as possible. Sometimes it serves an excellent way to find your true identity. Explore new hobbies and interests because this phase allows you to try any role. Join multiple clubs and societies, no matter how strange they sound. In a week, you will realize what activity or occupation is after your heart. At any rate, enjoy your first taste of freedom! Leave your comfort zone and look for amazing opportunities the university life can offer. Freshers’ Week is a great chance to penetrate to the amazing world of uni’s contrasts: lectures and parties, entertainment and responsibility, freedom and restrictions.
