I've moved back to university so now hopefully I'll have a hell of a lot of things to do with my time. Except I've moved in a week early for prior commitments, so at the moment I am the only person on my floor, probably the only person in my building, and definitely the only person in my room...I hope. Anyway, this is actually my final year of university, and since this gives me a false sense of superiority I am going to list a few things that you should not do when you go to university or college or whatever, especially for any freshers that are hoping to make their CV's look awesome with some sort of degree under their belt...hopefully you've missed the increase in fees!
Don't Take Too Much Stuff
I was definitely guilty of this during my first year, much to my father's (taxi's) chagrin. Yes, it is a big deal that you are moving out for probably the first time in your life, and yes, you want to make sure that wherever it is you're staying, it has all the things that make you feel at home, even when you aren't. But trust me, a lot of the stuff that you take, you really won't need. Obviously kitchen utensils, clothes, toiletries and all that, but you really don't need that much else because you just accumulate so much stuff while you're away (that's what student loans are for right?). At least limit yourself. That DVD collection can at least be put in a DVD wallet, and if you're a real film buff, just invest in a Lovefilm account or something. Don't buy the textbooks before you arrive; usually past students will be selling them for cheaper, and to be honest if you're sneaky you can find most textbooks in the university library. And plates and cutlery etc, how many do you really need? I know that they usually come in sets, but unless you're totally against washing up, you'll probably only need three plates at most; you aren't likely to be serving dinner for a host of people.
Don't Stay in Your Room
For a lot of people it can be hard to interact with strangers, and that's fine - there are more people in the world like that than you may think. But if you stay holed up in the safety of your room during the first few days while you acclimatise to your surroundings, you're going to find it really hard to get out of the bubble you make for yourself. Some people are okay with that, but if you want people to knock on your door to let you know that they're planning to go partying, you want them to be knocking to ask you to come along, not because they want you to let them back in at 2 in the morning because they know you'll still be up crying into your lonely pillow (exaggeration - it is possible to live at university and not particularly interact with your housemates; especially during your first year as it will be unlikely that you keep in contact with all of them after fresher's year is over)
Don't Get Smashed During Fresher's Week
Yes, you want to socialise with your new found friends, and yes, you want to show them how cool you are. Tequila shots, downing pints of beer, drinking weirdly coloured cocktails. Fine; just know your limits. Especially in the first few weeks, because otherwise you're just known as the idiot who gets drunk all the time, and they'll be laughing at you when you do something stupid, or bemoaning the fact that you threw up during the hallway. After a while it just gets boring, and you lose any credibility that you might have amassed for yourself by telling everyone you're studying Physics. Not to mention it just makes you feel awful and you can end up doing quite a few things you'll later regret...
Don't Have An Orgy
Hold on; if there is actually an opportunity to have a real orgy, with like, more than 4 participants, then I don't think I'm in any position to suggest you pass up this opportunity. What I mean is, in the first few delicate weeks of fresher's, don't give yourself that reputation. Girls unfortunately have the short end of the stick here as they're much more easily labelled sluts, but guys will also lose the respect of their peers when they keep bringing whatever floozy they found at the club back to their room. You need to bear in mind that you're living with the same people for at least a year, and if they decide that you're just some sort of sexual predator, you aren't going to make a bunch of real friends. And that is what university is really about; networking. You want to make a friend who you can later call up when you're 33, knowing that they'll invest in whatever business proposal you've thought up because you once saved them from being beaten up by a bouncer, instead of walking into an important interview and finding that the person sitting on the other side of the desk is the woman you promised you'd call and then told all your bro's how she talks in her sleep. Not wise.
Side note: Just as an extra thing, not at all proven and can be wrong, but take some real care and put real thought into whether you want any sort of romantic relationship with someone that a) lives with you or b) is on your course. A) If the person lives with you, you've jumped a few steps of how relationships progress, effectively already meandering around the 'moving in' stage. IF this relationship turns sour, and because young people are generally pretty rubbish at dealing with hurt feelings, it can make your world really unpleasant for the rest of the year. You'll see them in the kitchen, the hallway, maybe on the way home, and if it ended badly, you'll resent the fact that you live on the same floor and may ostracise yourself from your house mates as a result. But hey, it can be great too. B) This is more or less the same thing, except you have to think that instead of just a year of seeing this person, it could be three, and you could be forced to work with them in a study group, presentation, or whatever. And there'll be a lot more people for the ex to influence against you, which can be tough if he/she is particularly renowned in your class. AND if it ends up working out and you too are blissfully in love, don't show everyone else in lectures - everyone hates the lovey-dovey couple who sit at the back sucking each others faces.
Don't Join All the Societies
This isn't such a big thing and is more a testament to how lazy I actually am. During the fresher's fayre or whatever event that your university will hold to introduce you to their extra-curricular activities, every society and club will seem like the thing that you've been dying to do but never had the time or money. The thing is, you still don't really have the time or money, and a lot of the things that you sign up for can suck. Unfortunately, they often ask for your e-mail or other form of address, so unless you can be bothered to go back to them and 'unsubscribe' yourself, you'll be stuck with updates as a reminder of how you're still sitting in your room liking people's statuses on facebook just as you did in your home town. Choose a few that you're genuinely interested in, go along, make friends, and have fun.
Don't Mess up the Kitchen or Communal Bathroom
This is one of the worst things that you can do in your halls of residence. Yes, you should feel like you can call your new accommodation your home, but no, this isn't your home. Your mother or father isn't going to clear your plates and wrappers away, nor is he/she going to wipe the surfaces down after you spill sauce over them. No, this is a communal kitchen; and yes, now and then you might forget to clean up a plate immediately, but keep it up for weeks and you'll piss people off. I have friends who had such bad conditions in their kitchen due to lazy house mates that the cleaners who routinely mop the floors actually refused to do their jobs because of the mass of rotting food next to the sink. And it's just sad to see one innocent house mate give up and clean it all up for them, because then they've won and they'll do it again next week. And of course, even worse is messing up the communal bathroom...you can use your imagination, but this has an added effect of severely damaging your attractiveness to anyone who pegs that you're the one who made that unsightly stain in the toilet. It's a flush system people! Figure it out or grab a goddamn brush - nobody else is going to do it for you!
Peace
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