Classic Mistakes That British Students Make at College

Freshers week has reared its drunk, sloppy, bacteria-infested head once again. Around the UK, thousands of #teens are finding out what it means to be independent for the first time in their lives. Which makes the experience sound a lot more profound than it really is.

Over the next month or so, many students will feel pressured to impress others. Problem is, in doing so, they'll be setting themselves up to behave like massive dickheads—something not very conducive to making friends or really getting anything out of college. Hospitalizing yourself with a handle of brandy is obviously hilarious if you do it once, but it's not so funny when you go out and do it again, in a toga made out of the new IKEA sheets your mom bought you, right after being discharged from emergency room. Same goes for fucking a dead pig's head.*

I'm currently studying for a Bachelors in Philosophy and Theology, so as well as learning how to stare pensively out of windows, I've now spent four years watching 18-year-olds routinely lose all dignity for two weeks straight. Over that time, I've also collected a number of friends who've had their own humiliating freshmen experiences. So, with their help, I thought I'd provide a guide on how to steer clear of ruining the first week of college for yourself and everyone around you.

My own personal piece of advice to this year's freshers is do not feel like you have to be driving the banter bus. As a male student at an English-speaking university, it's easy to be swept up into that culture in your first week, but you're much better off just avoiding the groping of women in the student union and the throwing of drinks over strangers, both during university and for the entirety of the rest of your life.

Lads are, generally, quite accommodating to newcomers, as long as you can prove you're not a soft cunt by eating a Big Mac, drinking half a bottle of gin, intentionally vomiting up that Big Mac and then eating the vomit off the floor. But as much of a laugh as that sounds, don't allow the immediate sense of belonging to sway you; spend a bit more time finding friends who aren't going to end up in the national press for making rape jokes in their rugby society pamphlets.

Georgia Allen, 20 (Fashion Textiles)

I started the term wearing a yellow Kappa shell suit and bright white Classics. I had never dressed like that in my life. However, I'm at the London College of Fashion, and I figured that considering I'm paying a shedload of money to be arty, I may as well dive in with both Reeboks. Soon, I realized that I was trying to fit in at a college where individuality is celebrated, and went back to wearing the same old proto-normcore outfits I always had.

Freshers week is a great time to explore your future home, get to know your future friends, and, gradually, work out who you are away from the constraints of home and the judgmental eyes of everyone you went to high school with. Your true self will emerge at some point, so you may as well just ride it out, rather than trying to be something you're not, just to fit in with a load of people you may never see again.

Benjamin Cook, 21 (English graduate)

When you're drunkenly shoveling matter into your body after an underwhelming Tim Westwood DJ set at your student union, it will seem like everyone in the kebab shop is your soulmate. You'll find someone from the same shitty corner of South London as you, swap numbers, and promise to meet each other at some point in the next week, knowing you never will.

Drunk or sober, the pressure to fit in during freshers is real; you're either a southerner marooned up north or a northerner exiled in the Home Counties. Or you're from the Midlands. Either way, more often than not, you're friendless when you first start out. Don't take this as a cue to jump on any vague similarity with a stranger. Find genuine shared interests and see how it develops from there, like a real grown up.

Otherwise, you'll end up like me: spending three years having uncomfortable stop 'n' chats with the guy who lived five floors above you, and 100 Facebook friends who you never see IRL, but whose "Cambodia 2K15" photos you'll spend far too much time glaring at while you're trying to force out 10,000 words on Postcolonial Indian Literature.

Hannah Tomes, 21 (English and Art History)

Three years ago, arriving at university as an excited, impressionable fresher, I went a bit mad on the society sign-ups. Trying to trick the people I was with into believing I had actual interests and wasn't just an awkward sixth-former marooned somewhere I didn't belong, I lost track of all the societies that now had my details.

University societies—as I wish I'd known three years ago—will harass you for as long as you have your university email account, even when you ask them repeatedly to stop. So unless you really want a weekly reminder that you haven't paid your $1 monthly membership fee to the FilmSoc, pay attention to which clipboards you sign your name to. Or just don't bother with societies at all; there are better ways to make friends than sitting around in an empty classroom and talking about Henri Cartier-Bresson.

India Greenhalgh, 22 (Journalism)

Moving into a shitty student dorm with a bunch of teenagers who don't understand why black mould forming on cutlery is A Bad Thing can be a real shock to the system. But try not to ditch these idiots too soon. Yes, you might have to listen to them masturbate through your paper-thin walls, but they're probably not as bad as you think.

Take it from me: if you custard pie your flatmates as soon as one of them nicks your milk, you'll spend the rest of the year eating Pot Noodles alone in your room while they do stuff like talk to each other, laugh, and enjoy their lives.

Related: Watch the time VICE went to a student house party in Manchester and tried to talk about politics.

Jasmine Andersson, 23 (English)

It's easy to come to college believing that everyone will be like you and nobody will ever stumble into your room late one night, shitfaced, and piss on your feet. But it's not always the place you imagine it to be. In fact, it's often full of people who are about as different from you as anyone could ever be—who have no problem with their room (and, eventually, the entire flat) stinking of musty fish because they haven't bothered to throw away any of the open sardine cans they've been snacking on.

But if you want to make something of your time at college, learn how to take this for what it is and try to have fun with it. If someone's smoking weed in their room, don't call security. If someone's listening to gabber really loudly on a Monday afternoon, don't bang on the wall; pop in, ask them what the matter is and suggest some music you can both listen to together that isn't going to give you a nosebleed.

Essentially: chill the fuck out and get on with it; you can move away from all these people as soon as you leave halls, and that's only like another 11 months away.

Flora Tiley, 20 (Geography)

College can be hard—unexpectedly hard—but should only really be so from second year onwards. Anyone who tells you otherwise either lacks a fundamental grasp of weighted marking systems, or is probably studying medicine.

I learned this the hard way, trudging through extended reading lists from the outset, only to discover that the first year counted towards nothing but a few weeks wasted in geological timescale proxies and river sediment, wishing death upon whoever created the Harvard referencing system. I mean, I study geography; all I really needed in first year were some Crayola.

The way to nail first year? Make sure you at least complete all your work on time to ensure you don't get kicked off the course, and then spend the rest of your week partying. Because once you get a full time job, weekdays start to mean something again, and actually using your brain in an office is a lot harder on a comedown than it is in a lecture hall.

*allegedly