Freshers: The highs and lows

The highs

Matriculation

Let the likes start rolling in

Not only was there free food, free booze and the chance to get on it with your DOS, but there was also the opportunity to get a banging new Facebook profile picture. You know, just in case we wanted to rub it in the faces of our friends back home a little bit more.

Freshers' fair

When they say there’s something out there for everyone, they mean it. If delivering surprise cakes to students is your thing, they’ve got you. If comedy opera tickles your pickle, they’ve got you. If you like to vent your anger via the means of shooting pretend birds in the sky, they’ve got you. And failing that there was the free Domino's and donuts. Mmmm.

Friendships

You literally make seven new best friends every day. It’s mental.

The trick is to try and figure out whether these guys are just your 'lifeboats' of week one or whether they are here to stay….

Partying

So it turns out people here actually do go out and sesh. Hard. After the initial confusion of discovering that Vinyl, Life and Kuda are all the same place, the freshers clubbing scene was certainly something to remember.

Sweating your tits off in Fez with a group of people you’ve known for three days? Awesome. Risking your life (or, rather, your bowels) in buying food from the "van of death"? Even better. Plus we now live within walking distance of the second biggest Wetherspoons IN THE UK. Winner.

Yes mum I have friends !

The lows…

Realising everyone at Cambridge is kinda smart

Who would have guessed it, huh? Yet we’ve all freaked out upon the realisation that we have gone from being the "clever" one to being a hideously average student.

Big fish small pond, to feeling like a very small fish, maybe even just plankton, amongst the Pacific Ocean.

Realising that Cambridge is weird

Coming here literally involves learning another language. Parties are now "bops" or "ents", your student ID is now a "Camcard", the canteen is now a "buttery", a cleaner is now a "bedder" and science is now "natsci".

Even the weeks here are different… Monday is now on Thursday? Yet we kinda still get a weekend? Also, Sainsbury’s is now basically the only supermarket in existence. Weird. Expensive and weird.

Adulting

Apparently now that we’re at uni we have to actually be proper adults. Scandalous. From doing our own laundry [Content Warning for people at Emmanuel, everyone else has to do it themselves!] to washing the pots and even to cooking (or burning) our own meals, uni has thrust us head first into the disgusting world of independent living.

Exhaustion

In Freshers' we actually had to socialise ALL THE TIME. We couldn’t even pull the "I’ve got work to do" card to avoid mingling with other human beings. Pair this emotionally draining experience with little sleep, a weeklong hangover and 9am meetings and you’re in for a nasty case of Freshers’ flu. Not fun.

The kitchens

What's cookin, good lookin?

Forget the 900 year old manuscripts, the rarest artefact in Cambridge is in fact the oven. So if you’ve come here with your cookbook in hand, ready to become the next Nigella Lawson, it’s time to let those dreams die. Unless you happen to be skilled in the fine art of microwave cooking. Handy tip for you all- pasta can be boiled in the kettle if you just try hard enough.

The introductions

"What’s your name?" "What do you study?" "Where are you from?" We’ve asked and been asked these questions a ridiculous number of times during Freshers', only to forget what people have told us less than two minutes later. Painful.

If you want to keep things simple, assume they're an HSPS'er from London. The odds are rather high.

Although we may all now be riddled with the flu (like, really really awful flu), Cambridge freshers' week was an experience that, for one reason or another, we will struggle to forget…