A letter to a fresher: from a well-wishing friend

Dear Fresher,

Welcome! You’ve made it to university! After 19 or more years, a lifetime of learning has been crudely reduced to a few letters, a number in a system, which now make you worthy of higher education.

You are – drum roll – a student! One of the 2,340,275 in Britain, becoming part of one of the best institutions in the country (Times University of the year if you’re keeping track). This, surely, means you know things; it means you’re ready to take on the world. Whether going to university was an unquestioned path or a tough decision, you had expectations: hopes, fears and those silly little worries that pop up only to be immediately dismissed. After the chaos of the first few days, many of these probably now seem a lifetime away. None of that matters now. However, there is something I would like you to know, because unless you’re one of those outgoing, go-with-the-flow, or motivated types, first year can be a rocky ride.

Last year I was you: eager, fresh-faced, excited about everything I could do, or be, and about where the next year would take me (and don’t get me wrong, that’s absolutely how you should be).

First year, for everybody, is a massive learning curve, and it will hit you in a way that you least expect it.

In your first introductory talk you’ll most likely have been given a figure by some soon-to-be-forgotten authority who will ominously tell a large group of (hungover) freshers how many won’t make it to the end of the year. At the time I brushed this off with the naive certainty that this definitely would not apply to me. Like public health officials warning you of a disease you may catch, you too will probably brush it off thinking: “Well that won’t be me, I’ll be fine”.

If someone had told me then, how close I would come to being that statistic, I would’ve laughed. Yet four months down the line I was, to be brutally honest, something of a nervous wreck, trying desperately whether to ride out the storm or break loose, drop out of Warwick, and accept one of four offers from other Russell Group Universities. I will never know if I made the right decision, but I made a decision. I’d felt like I’d been standing in a blizzard with no sense of direction, unable to see further than the next week, only certain that if I stood still too long I would freeze.

When I decided, finally, to stay, it was as if, out of the impenetrable whiteness, someone was handing me a coat. I did not yet know which way I was going, but there was warmth, and I could walk.

University, for me, had been an end goal. Having to think about life afterwards was like staring into a vast desert of empty space. In those first few weeks, as everyone tried to be the very best versions of themselves, my cohort appeared to be super eager, to have plans and long-term ambitions. Like a lot of arts students, I have no idea what I want to do in the future.

I remember being told by a careers advisor in the first week: “Sorry guys – but you have no skills”. I don’t know about you, but that was a bit of a slap in the face.

As an idealistic fresher, career talks and CV workshops fractured my faith in what I had always considered to be the core of university study. I really just wanted to learn. I became disenchanted.

Learning is what I love, it is what I know, but its purity has been lost in the chaotic conveyor belt of higher education, hell bent on creating a new generation of urban high earners.

In terms of a career the surest thing I have learnt so far is that I most definitely do not want to be a banker. Everything else is up for discussion.

First year knocked the wind out of me and I was left with the painful sense that I was not the same person I was a year ago: that I had changed in some unalterable way as the thin veil of certainty about life had lifted. Yet I have come to realise that whilst such negative experiences may leave deep scars, they are not mortal blows to a person we once were. In time, we learn from them and become more resilient. It took a great friend to remind me that we never lose ourselves entirely, and ultimately we decide what parts of ourselves to carry forward and what to leave behind.

Who knows what the year will bring for you? I know people who loved first year, and those who hated it. And for most it’s a mixed bag of ups and downs. “University is great, you’ll love it!”, everyone has said, “the best years of your life!” But what if they’re not? I felt as if I was letting the side down by not enjoying myself: that I wasn’t playing the game.

I did not think anyone would understand. I thought I was alone. To admit, even to myself, that I was struggling felt tantamount to treachery. Do not make the same mistake. Talk to your friends, to your family, to your tutors, to your GP. They will listen, and they will help, even if you don’t recognise this at the time or feel, determinately as I did, that this was your battle to fight. First year is about finding your feet, making new friends and having fun. Yes it can be lonely, and it will present new challenges, but you should never suffer in silence. Just remember everything will be okay. And you are most certainly not alone.

Good luck!
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Photo: flickr/immieE