Freshers Scaries

On the 23rd of September 2022, my Mum moved me into my first-year halls. My mind raced for the
three and a half hour drive up to Leeds, anticipating the amazing nights out I was due to experience
and all the friends for life I was definitely going to meet in the first few days of freshers. With my room set up and my fridge shelf full, I waved my mum off as tears glazed my cheeks. Life as an adult had begun.

I hurled myself into fresher-life with an undying social battery, talking as much as possible to as
many people as I could, going clubbing and exploring the city. But as the end of the week crept
nearer, a cloud began to linger over me. The endless Instagram posts of other people’s idyllically
constructed freshers weeks bewitched me, and I began to question whether I had done freshers
week ‘well enough’. But my time was up, freshers week was over, and the realities of university life were becoming apparent. Suddenly, the tasks of everyday living hit me smack in the face. As I lugged my washing down flights of stairs, and the kitchen started to look a little bit grimmer than it had when I arrived, my freshers high began to crumble, and reality dawned.

As I reminisce about the very beginning of first year, I am amazed at how we all get through it. Only
this time last year, I was living the antithesis of my life now. Today, I am sat in my cosy front room
with five other girls that I will love and know for the rest of my life, secure and happy, a far cry from
the overwhelmed version of me that sat in her first-year kitchen.

Most of us come to university knowing how to cook, clean and take care of ourselves, but the
challenge is then doing this when you feel lonely or low, irritated by a flatmate, or just absolutely
exhausted. Then when everything seems like too much anyway, you’ve got to make your way round
campus, entering buildings that feel like rabbit warrens and engaging with your lectures (or not).
Tired, you trawl back to your accommodation where your flatmates await. I was lucky to have a
lovely group of people to live with, but still, the reality of living with strangers was something of a
shock. The atmosphere of the space that you come back to is incredibly important for your well-
being, especially when you are so far away from home, and managing your relationships with the
people you live with can be challenging sometimes.

As the leaves fall from the trees and the cold becomes even more biting, it’s only natural for the
homesickness to creep in. Missing your mum has got to be one of the most dejected states a person can endure, especially when you’re a week or two into university life. You are yet to form a bond with anyone which matches the deep and consolidated relationships you share with friends at home, a feeling I really struggled with, as my friends are incredibly important to me.

But as the days passed, I spent more and more time with a girl who today, I call my best friend. We
sat in each other’s rooms cackling and talking about our lives before each other. We went clubbing together, including a time when I got so drunk and sick that I cried to her in fear she wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore…

The friendship grew and so did my confidence in myself and my new life, and then everything else followed. It takes great courage to put yourself out there, but the more you do the more you grow, and I think that is how we transform from teenagers into adults.

The weeks leading up to Christmas felt so slow in my first year, but then I blinked and now I’m nearly halfway through my degree. I began my life here wishing away the weeks of feeling uncomfortable, but now I would do anything to stop time.