Students' and Parents' Experiences
"New Friends, New Start"
There is no stranger experience than starting University. You will not have done anything like it before.
It´s the day before you go – that fateful last meeting with friends in `the local´ where you´ve met every week for so long. There´s a sense of deflation, everyone´s trying to be happy but it doesn´t quite work. Stiff upper lip until you get home and realise that it´s your last night. People you´ve known for seven years are suddenly not going to be seen for weeks. Take time to cry, we´ve all been there.
Next day: THE DAY. You will feel empty inside, the cases will be by the door, mum will be fussing, dad will be checking his road atlas – "Are you sure you haven´t been given a better map?" – sisters and brothers will want to say goodbye. And you just feel lost in the middle of all this, not knowing where you´ll be and who you´ll be with in just a few hours time.
Into the car, everything´s packed, up starts the engine, look out of the window and the house disappears for the last time. This is it. No going back now, there´s only one way to go. But thankfully, it´s quite a good way.
It´s lunchtime and you´ve arrived and seen your room. Nice, quite spacious, a shelf for my CDs, wonder where I can plug my laptop in? Not a bad view… everything gets unpacked and then, the last goodbye. Eighteen years of looking after parents and now you´re waving them off. A sense of excitement and danger emerges – this is your life now, you can live it how you want. Party!
Except… no, let´s wait a bit for that. You´ve got new people to meet! But what if they don´t like me? Will I become a social outcast? What if… hang on, someone´s coming to talk to me. Hello, how are you… we´re talking, getting on! I´ve made a friend! And wait here´s some more friendly people! And more! Everyone´s so nice, how could I ever have thought otherwise? So many new people, so many faces, so many new names to learn…
Let´s go down to the bar so we won´t remember them all in the morning.
And so life goes on from here. You will meet so many new people in Intro Week that it will be impossible not to find a friend or, to put it more exactly, friends. There will be tough times, times when you´re homesick but at university there´s no going back, just onwards and upwards. You´ll also notice just how fantastic your parents are, but try not to be scared of the washing machine, or try to find some friendly domesticated person who understands the difference between white and colour washes.
New friends, new city, new nightlife, new course, new start: university covers all these things. And it´s just brilliant.
Christopher Barrow
English Language and Literature
First Year