Who wants to scrap Freshers' Week?

So, this weekend, I get the opportunity to move into my brand new accommodation, which I am grabbing with both hands. Don't get me wrong, I love being at home, but  I haven't adapted to the introduction of these things called 'rules' since they re entered my life in June.

Frankly, I can't wait to have my own space again, which I can abuse as much as I like.. well, within reason.  I can't wait to come home from a day on campus, fall onto a double bed and throw my clothes around the room, which will be cleaned up when my parents decide to pay an impromptu visit. (My mother is now internally cringing as she reads this - I joke, mother, I joke.) Apart from all the excitement of moving out and renewing my independence, there is one thing on my mind which is on the lips of all students, lecturers and fearful residents in the surrounding area - Fresher's Week.

Our Freshers' Week at Swansea - My flat and I are actually in this picture. :')

Ahh Fresher's Week. Try as you might to cover it up to your parents as socialising, gathering up bundles of independence and getting a head start on your lectures, the first week of university is indisputably defined by alcohol. New students will be moving into halls, getting lost around campus, skipping off to get their student ID cards for the library and generally trying to fit in which is, of course, all done under the shadow of a pint glass. (Well, it is if you're me.)  

But, as the cost of living and student fees rise, (unless, of course, you're Welsh and purely awesome), do university students really need a Fresher's week?

I'm not asking this question myself, which I would have to answer with a resounding YES. It's just that today, as I idly woke up at half past one and turned on my laptop alongside a bowl of coffee and a mug of cornflakes,(I kid you not), I came across an ongoing online debate via the Huffington Post, (don't ask why), entitled 'Does  Fresher's Week do more harm than good?'

Does Freshers week do more harm than good?

Now, I love a good debate, purely because I usually win, what with my persistent habit of not keeping quiet when I'm told to. I also love procrastinating, so reading the arguments wasn't much of a challenge, as I avoided tasks that my mother had entrust me with. They got done eventually, so no harm done.

Studies following the line of questioning above have already been done and show that students, like us, see freshers' week as a significant part of university life. I loved freshers' - it was one gigantic whirlwind of neon paint, alcohol, skeleton costumes, alcohol, silent discos, alcohol, campus parties and... well, alcohol. But it was as terrifying as it was fun. It was the week in which I was bombarded with more questions than I think I had been in my whole 18 years of being alive. Some mundane as "What A-levels did you do?", and some more scary ones like, "How will I feed myself without getting food poisoning?", or "What's the best thing I can pawn when my student loan runs out?"  

My second Freshers' week is starting in ten days and like many other students across the UK, I am thoroughly preparing myself for my second bout of freshers' flu, even though I'm a returning student. I'm saving up money to waste on sambuca shots and allowing my intolerance for alcohol to deteriorate even further by not drinking the stuff excessively. Basically, I can't wait.

From left to right - Me, Becky, Laura, Daisy, Amelia, Sophie, Chloe and Amie.
Freshers Week.  

This certainly wasn't the case this time last year. The thought of throwing myself at complete strangers with the intention of making new friends for life left me weak at the knees. Whenever someone mentioned Freshers' Week, my palms got sweaty and I felt like throwing up. As an incoming fresher, I was pretty crap to be perfectly honest. So I really can't wait to go out and redeem that status by enjoying freshers' week to its fullest.

The fact is that freshers' week is completely different to the rest of university life - it is pretty much the only time that everybody talks to everybody without any social hang ups or pretensions. Those individuals who are painfully shy - the type you are prepared to hit with a hammer to get them talking - blossom under the influence of alcohol which is good, because it means making friends is a hell of a lot easier with everyone so merry and not socially awkward. Something definitely changes when freshers' is over. The athletic types get together to have deep discussions about the pros and cons of protein powder. The middle class, Pippa Middleton alikes have battles about who owns the most horses and surnames. Those venturing in from London set out to find others from London, or keep on being friends with those they previously knew from London. The Welsh students take refuge in discussing nostalgic memories of coal and the sheep back at home. The Scots settle to drink everything is sight and feast on Haggis to feel at home. The Irish find solace in spending their pots of gold on shots and grimacing when someone asks them to say 'potato'. You're differences don't matter, however, when you're all dressed up as Smurfs or Skeletons.  

The presumptions and stigma surrounding freshers' week makes it out to be one gigantic piss up and while that is what most students get up to during their final week of being able to retain sanity before returning to lectures, to be told how unemployable you are and will be for the next three years.  However, that's not always the case. Sure, people end up having a pint... or five, but the reality is that you don't spend every waking second of Freshers' week drunk. You still need time to be hungover enough to throw yourself into a cold shower, watch your Friends boxset and thrust yourself back out into the wilderness of student events in the evenings. There are other events going on in Freshers' week, and while I didn't attend them, (I opted for a Freshers' Flu to last me until December), I hear they're pretty good for the student whose idea of fun doesn't involve lying on the floor in Oceana and asking the room to stop spinning. 

Without a doubt, students shouldn't be pressured into downing a bottle of Tesco Value Vodka, (and I wouldn't recommend it), which is why alternative events are going on every day throughout freshers' week. Ultimately, Fresher' is a vital time for students to settle into new environments, make friends and get to know a whole new city; something lots of incoming students have never experienced.  Let's face it, it's basically a piss up with structure, for the student who wants to be drunk and locked out at 4am, and the student who may not want to be involved with some of the more typical freshers' antics.

I answered the question myself and it turns out the 

72% of us don't think that Freshers' week does more harm than good. For me, whether Freshers' week lasts five days or two weeks, it is a wonderful and exhausting experience, where you are sure to be locked out, so drunk you forget your evening, hungover, have thrown up at least once, fallen over and woken up with mysterious bruises. You will end freshers' with a whole bunch of shiny, new friends, some which will end up taking part in your wedding day, and some you will awkwardly nod at when you see them in Tesco's in the future. When freshers' ends, you will be a tiny bit more independent than you were the week before, (well, you'd have survived your cooking, right?) and all set for the next night out. If having a few too many pints, shots or glasses of cheap wine is what it takes to get you there, is that such a bad thing? Uh.. No.

So give the newbie's a break and let them get themselves so drunk that they're still lying on the campus grounds the next morning, face down in a puddle of Smirnoff ice. Freshers' is one of the best times in your university life and everything is plain sailing from then on, (aside from the degree that has to be done. But no biggie.) Even if you like Justin Beiber, (you may not want to mention that, though), there is something for everyone to do and someone for you to do it with.