The joys of… Starting university!

I’m going into my third year of university, and on the cusp of turning twenty-one, I feel older than anyone has the right to feel. It’s only been two years since I started here, but I look at pictures of myself taken on my first day and don’t recognise the person I see. It’s more than just a feeling; I genuinely look different having discovered how I like to dress and do my makeup while at university.

Despite this, I can still feel the echoes of the emotions from those first few weeks. I’m a first-generation university student, and after months of anticipation, I became gravely terrified in the weeks leading up to finally moving in and leaving home. I spent countless hours watching vlogs of student life, trying to imagine myself in those scenarios, and wishing more information was included on what Fresher’s week really was.

I’ve met people from all over the world, with all different kinds of interests and personalities

A lot of people had told me, after spending all of my time in school chatting to my English teachers and being excruciatingly nerdy, that university would be where I find my people.  Here, they said, I would meet students who read Virginia Woolf, and spend evenings chatting about politics and theatre. I wasn’t completely convinced by this, since similar things had been said about sixth form, secondary school, and long before that, school in general, all to largely no avail. Yet, I think it’s kind of turned out to be true. There are just so many more people at university than there ever were at school. I’ve met people from all over the world, with all different kinds of interests and personalities. It’s like a completely different universe from my home county of Lincolnshire which consists mainly of fields and outdated political views. I remember walking back from a friend’s house in Fresher’s week just counting all the different languages I could hear – the world just seemed to get bigger around me, and the possibilities of who I could be in this new place seemed to grow too.

I hope you end up with your world just a little bit bigger too

I’ve had those passionate discussions about writers and politics that my teachers envisioned for me, but I’ve also gone out clubbing and felt the bass in my chest whilst I danced. I’ve kissed strangers, and had a play I wrote performed on stage. I remember on the night I arrived at university, I hid away in my new room, listening to my new roommates talking outside the door, too scared to join them. I can’t imagine the me of today doing this. I’m undoubtedly still shy, but I can talk to strangers without having to spend the rest of the day dwelling on what I said, and I’ve become able to walk down the street without worrying how I’ll come across to others.

I’d never do anything as cliché as visit my past self – I’ve already planned my course of action for when/if I come across a time machine – but I do feel a mixture of fondness and grief when I think of eighteen-year-old me sitting up in bed watching vlog after vlog with my chest full of worries. I’ll never be that person again. If you’re a fresher who has just started, I hope you enjoy your first year, and I hope you end up with your world just a little bit bigger too.