Haven’t you heard? The only way is Warwick

Mareike Zollner and Raveena Kaur provide a peek into the fun they had during Freshers’ Fortnight

Mareike Zollner

Having been interrogated at the airport after my scissors were detected in my luggage and almost missing my flight, I should have known this was an omen for things to come. Once I had boarded, I could relax knowing that when I finally got off the plane it would be as an international student studying for her Masters degree at Warwick University.

My first few weeks as a new postgrad student went a little like this:

Umbrella? Check.
Passport? Check.
Freshers’ Passport? Crap, sold out.

Arriving on a campus which I had only previously seen on Google Earth with 40kg of life in a suitcase to pull. I already felt in strong need of a holiday. Met with a marathon session of signing papers, queuing for keys and food and getting confused about events and directions I had been through more than enough to tip me over the edge and make me long for the days of airport interrogations.

I can assure you my freshers experience was not all doom and gloom, meeting so many great, fun and inspiring people from all around the globe made the settling-in phase a lot easier. What followed the friendly introductions were 14 days of crazy, intense partying, sightseeing, bonding, dating and Irish dancing.

Raveena Kaur

With all the hype and hysteria surrounding student life, the moment I would finally arrive onto campus was wildly anticipated. Despite the Freshers’ Passports being the reason for my lack of sleep, they proved to be little gems getting me into every event of the fantastic fortnight.

A highlight definitely included the Paint Party. However, I will say that when you’re just over five feet tall, being sandwiched in a room full of too many people and not enough oxygen is definitely not ideal.

Messiness aside, the hardest part of being a Fresher is getting used to the fact that you can no longer rely on your mother to cook for you. This finally hit me in Week 2 when I had run out of ideas for jazzing up a loaf of bread. To avoid cooking and the imminent hunger, I found myself back in the Copper Rooms night after night to partake in another manic night of shenanigans; I figured a night of frivolity was equivalent if not better than anyone’s five a day.

Another part of my Warwick initiation involved circling. No matter what anyone told me before attending, I was certainly not prepared to continuously ‘down it, fresher’. Weeks later, even the thought of a sip of the infamous drink of ‘Purple’ has the capacity to make me shudder. If you haven’t tried it yet, approach that violet-coloured concoction with caution!

Although I have only been a student here for a few weeks, it feels like a lifetime. Warwick is beautiful. Where else can you stumble across a taxi man sitting in his car alone, belting his heart out to Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’?