Ten lessons we wish we learned BEFORE we moved into halls

1. Make Friends, Fast

You don’t have to live with these people for three years, you don’t even have to really be friends with them six months down the line. But right now, they’re your flatmates, and you’ll be enjoying freshers’ week with them. You’ll thank yourself when they’re holding back your hair or getting you into a taxi.

2. Log Out, Log Out, Log Out.

Your Facebook is now fair game. If you leave your door on the latch, and your account open on your laptop, get ready for a very public coming out party, some awkward photo ‘liking’, or an admission of sexual infections…

3. Fire Drill Fashion?

Fire drills are your college administration’s way of torturing you keeping you safe. They can strike at any time. From now on, you are like a soldier on constant alert. Always have clothes at the ready, because you just don’t want to be caught out in a towel.

4. Don’t Be Alarmed

As if making you evacuate at six o’clock in the morning after a heavy night isn’t enough, your college will also hold regular fire alarm ‘tests’, where the alarm will sound for a few seconds without you needing to react. But be warned – it’ll be early, it’ll be loud, you’ll still be in bed and, the first few times, you will jump out of your skin and start pulling on your clothes. Six weeks in? You might even be able to sleep through it.

5. Powerful Porter Pals

The porters will take in your packages, replace your lost key, and change your light bulbs. They are the most important friends to make when you live in halls – if they like you, they can make your life a lot easier!

6. Operation Cash Point

Unplanned taxis home, spontaneous fast food ordering… There are some very good reasons to suddenly need a cash point. Make it a priority to know where your nearest hole in the wall is.

7. Food Filching

The rules of a communal fridge? There are no rules. It may not be great etiquette, but hungry mouths will roam, and your leftovers might be their prey. Just remember this – no matter how angry it makes you, there is no excuse for a passive aggressive note stuck on the fridge.

8. Under Lock and Key

Trailing down to the porters’ lodge with wet hair and no shoes because you’ve locked yourself out will get old very quickly, and by the third time it’s happened in a week you will wish there was a way to fuse your key to your own skin. In fact, that might be worth looking into…

9. Save, Store and Stockpile

From now on, don’t throw clothes away. The skull and crossbones T-shirt from your Goth phase is given a whole new lease of life for the pirate-themed fancy dress night. The misguided metallic gold belt is perfect over a bed-sheet toga. Sounds crazy? You’ll start to think this way too soon.

10. Learn the Rules of the Laundry Room.

If you forget about that load of washing you put in the dryer, and run down to the laundry room three hours later, your clothes will be dumped in the corner with the Coke cans and the lint balls. Tough but true.