Editors’ Letter – The best year of your life?

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’ll be the best year of your life,” everyone said. “You’ll never be as carefree or excited again.” Aside from the blatantly bleak notion of “it’s all downhill from here,” all of this pressure to enjoy my first year at university made me really stressed.

It made me stressed at the prospect of university, but it panicked me more so when, three weeks into my first year, I just wanted to go home. I’d made some friends, sure, I’d been out plenty, met lots of people, and experienced lots of new things, but at this point, I wanted my Mummy, and that made me even more depressed because it made me feel immature and, yes, pathetic. This, coupled with the niggling thought in the back of my mind that it should have been the best time of my life, had me wondering if this was as good as it was goingto get.

My problem was primarily that I had a job pretty much as soon Freshers’ week ended, and this job required me to be up at six every morning, regardless of the banging headache from the night before. These early mornings, mixed with late nights, paid work and university work turned out to be too much  for me to handle.

My second year at university was so much better as a result: I loved going out, I loved working, and I spent time with so many different people.

Instead of realising it was the job that was the problem, I blamed the late nights, and just stopped going out. My days then consisted solely of work, and I never gave myself time to have any fun. I thought that I was looking after myself by sleeping more, but what I was doing was simply neglecting to spend time with new friends. Luckily, I realised before it was too late. I chucked my awful job and got one working the same number of hours but in concentrated periods, so that I had five days a week to unwind, go out in the evenings, have a lie-in the next day, and have fun. My second year at university was so much better as a result: I loved going out, I loved working, and I spent time with so many different people.

There are two morals to this story, and I hope this will help some of you in your delicate forays into adulthood. Firstly, if you need a job in first year, get one that gives you plenty of time off to focus on building friendships and your academic work. Secondly, Freshers is NOT necessarily going to be the best year of your life, but that’s ok. For me, second year far surpassed first, and it might for you too.

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Photo: flickr/thebarrowboy