The madness of the first lectures of this session commencing has begun. As a new first year university student, emerging timidly from my small, rainy hometown and being thrown into the deep end of a concrete jungle with thousands of people I’ve never met (and starting a new job in the same week!), I’m a little daunted to say the least.
Initially the nerves are reminiscent of how I felt when I first
started secondary school. Being the newbies in that situation as impressionable
eleven year olds, my year group lived in fear of having our heads flushed in
the toilets by the “big kids” as the ancient legend told. However after a few
weeks of settling in, making new friends and memorising our six-period-a-day
timetables, we realised that the big bad school wasn’t so bad after all. We quickly
found our way around with flimsy homemade-looking maps and adapted to our new
school environment. But before we could get too comfortable, suddenly we were sixth
year pupils setting up charity events, learning to drive, enduring the
headaches and nausea after bouts of underage drinking, job hunting, applying to
UCAS and trying to cram a year’s worth of studying into one night in a
desperate attempt to pass our final exams. And so now it all begins again.
We’re going from being some of the oldest and wisest (I use the word “wise”
lightly) to some of the youngest and most clueless.
This time around, I’m not so worried about mythical torture
from older students but more so about: getting lost, being late for classes,
missing lectures, not being able to cling on to childhood friends from my last
school, making new friends (because I think I’ve actually forgotten how to) and
pushing myself to the standard of work expected at university. However, as a
pleasant surprise, the induction day silenced most of the niggling, anxious
voices in my head.
The first part of our induction and welcoming into the
University of Strathclyde was a Unismart lecture. The whole room was in
stitches as a very excitable Lee Evans type Ozzy bloke, who appeared to under
the influence of some kind of colourful narcotic, ran around the room telling
jokes and funny stories about sex, drugs and of course getting “mad wae it”.
The talk was also interspersed with more serious issues and worries we might be
having, as well as information about all the support and services the
university offers us. The session firmly reassured us all that we’re just
starting university, the world isn’t ending. It was a reminder of what we’ve
been told since we got our acceptance letters, that “everyone is in the same
boat” but this time the message felt more sincere. We just need to keep
reminding ourselves that we have gotten into university, which means we have
already demonstrated our academic ability and with a little hard work (along
with paracetamol and Irn Bru for when we’re studying hung-over in the library),
we can do it.
So I’ll stop rambling and get back to frantically trying to
figure out where and when my next lectures are, setting up my timetable,
repetitively scanning clothes and continuing to be polite to rather rude and
unsavoury customers at work. While in between all that: trying to pass my
driving test, have some kind of a social life, studying to hopefully get a
degree at the end of it all and generally tearing my hair out in a stress
induced rampage. Wish me luck!
