One of my best friends from home started at Leeds university a couple of weeks ago, and as the older university-wise friend I was the first port of call for all kinds of student related advice (from sensible queries about student loan forms to hysterical phone calls from IKEA about how many sets of cutlery to take). Of course I was happy to help and extremely pleased she would be so close to York but as she was receiving accommodation letters, buying plates and pans and worrying about getting lost around Leeds, I started to envy her excitable fresher’s bubble, especially seeing as my own bubble was mainly work related. This envy only got worse with pictures of her having a crazy freshers’ week filled my Facebook news feed (complete with the compulsory ‘I’ve got a cone on my head how funny am I?’ picture), while I was still in Durham feeling very homesick about York, with an unreasonable amount of dissertation reading to do.
Thinking back on my own freshers’ experience, my jealousy only grew. I wish I was still that naïve little fresher moving into my tiny Eden’s Court room two years ago. I want to have that ‘first time’ feeling back again; my first Viking Raid t-shirt, the first time I had a Nag’s treble, getting lost finding my first lecture, my first Ziggys visit. Now when I walk home from nights out and pass Clifford’s Tower I’m thinking ‘Jeez, it really hurt when we rolled down that in first year’ instead of the impulsive ‘We have GOT to roll down there’ thought that the majority of you new fresher’s will undoubtedly be thinking this year.
Fresher’s week as a third year just isn’t quite the same; this will be my seventh Viking Raid and my third Access All Areas (which frankly isn’t as fun when you’re not getting lost drunkenly between colleges like in first year). That nervous-excited feeling you get as your parents drive you up to your new accommodation for the first time can only be felt once.
Things just seem more sensible two years on, now my essays do count, word counts have at least doubled, I do have to make sure I get to that Friday morning 9:15, and next year instead of coming back to York and heading to the Charles for a catch up I’m going to have to go into the big wide world and get a job. I’m sure third year won’t be quite as dull as I’m painting it out to be, and there are some perks of being a third year during freshers week; knowing which freebies to blag in fresher’s fair, you know which events to avoid, and you don’t get ripped off by the drinks prices at the Fresher’s Ball. And this year my friends and I will still be falling out of Gallery on a Thursday night and I’ll probably still have to ask the porters where my seminar rooms are in the first week of term, but things won’t have the same carefree edge that they did in first year. I guess what I’m trying to say is make the most of your time at York, because mine is running away from me! I’ve turned into one of those scruffy sleep-deprived people I once saw sitting in one of the many university computer rooms desperately trying to finish an essay at three in the morning while I skipped passed on my way back from a night out.