Being a 'fresher' in London....

I was asked to write an article about being a 'fresher' for Uniplanet. Here it is:


So, having only started university this September, I had my first experience of 'Freshers week' and the whole general moving away from home experience.

Freshers week was, in a word- cliché, everyone was so excited about being 'a fresher' and attending really bad club nights and drinking the cheapest drink on the house. These events were also quite costly, I thought for students anyway and for their bad quality. I moved to London to experience the best of the nightlife. Having grown up in Stoke-on-Trent where nothing exciting ever happens, I was very eager to head out in London to some of the best clubs/clubnights and to witness some of the local musical talent.

So eager in fact, that on the Friday of Fresher's week, I completely abandoned Freshers week at Roehampton and headed to London Bridge for the launch night of The Counter Culture Project . It's a 99 day art/music/film exhibition taking place at a double roomed pop-up venue in London Bridge under a disused rail arch. The atmosphere was friendly, the music was good, DJ sets came from the coolest and the most current people in the industry, the lighting was phenomenal and the bar was relatively cheap and sold my favourite tequila! What more could you want? Most of the events happening there are also under a tenner, pretty student friendly really.


There have been some down sides of course to moving away from home, which I've found are: the prices of things (chicken, washing, standard things that you didn't know were so expensive), missing my friends from home that I have so much in common with, travelling (don't get me wrong, the London transport system is good, it's just the killer 3 buses home from central London at night are utterly lethal.)


From a personal prospective Freshers week is great as you're free, you have your own personal space, you are constantly meeting new people and no work to feel guilty about not attending to! But, if you're looking for interesting or fun events you're best paying the price and heading to central London for nights out rather than staying at the uni to watch some people from Hollyoaks (I don't know who they are, I don't watch Hollyoaks, I don't even have a TV) DJ quite badly.

So, in conclusion. Freshers week was great for meeting people as I met a collective bunch of people from 1st years to 3rd years but the events, at my university at least, were terrible, so bad infact, that I fell asleep at my own fresher's ball!