Best advice you could give to a fresher?

As long as you don't use your sexuality to make friends it wont be a problem.

this has all been really interesting and helpful but what about live at home students. will i be left out or have to put in even more effort
it seems most people lived on campus but what about those that did not. how did you keep up with rest, make new friends, find out about the parties and socials.

any information would be really helpful

REP FOR BEST ANSWER

because its so exciting

Yes you will have to put in more effort, it's hard to be 'in the loop' and you may get excluded from things if you don't make extra effort. As a live at home student, you may end up with most of your friends being on your course, but that's okay, a lot of people's good friends are from their course. Personally i'm not even living with my flatmates from last year (although they're all living together this year) and i'm living with 3 of my coursemates.

My friend that i'm living with this year lived in student accommodation last year, but he lived a lot further away from where everyone else was living. It was very rare that we'd go to his place (and in your case, it would probably be even rarer that people comes to yours) so he'd always have to come to us whenever anything was being organised. A bit of a pain, but students are lazy and will just pre-drink wherever is most handy.

Notably, he would often have to ask around if anything was going on or people would just forget to invite him to things, so make sure you're keeping in contact with friends by phone/text/facebook (without being creepy) with regards to if anything's being organized. Try not to make a big deal out of living at home or anything either, they might find it offputting or something to that extent!

It's not very hard to find out about socials and things like that, the societies you join will often have a mailing list and you can make friends at the societies and get in contact with them if you feel like you want to go on a social together. Just get involved at the beginning of the year with societies and you'll make a few friends there easily enough. Sports societies are known to get people integrated through just sheer volume of alcohol consumed so.

Ultimately yes you're going to have to do a lot more to maintain your social life, but there's the cons of not living in nearby student accommodation. You'll enjoy uni as much as anyone else as long as you're friendly and approachable and if you do commit the effort and time!

Why do ALL your full stops have a line above them?

For the love of God, TAKE SOME EARPLUGS. The night WILL come when your entire flat gets everyone over for pre-drinks and a night out and all you want to do is sleep.

And, always be yourself

For the flu.. couldn't you have like a handgel thing.

-Have fun.
-Don't be afraid to be yourself.
-Buy plenty of food (if you think you've bought too much, you can always cram it in the freezer!)

And most importantly remember this:

WHAT HAPPENS AT FRESHERS STAYS AT FRESHERS

- If you already know people at the same uni as you, don't hang around with them much until later in the year as you need the time to find out who your new friends are.

Well, I'll try my best and let you know how it goes

I'm genuinely terrified at the prospect of starting at university and especially the idea of the first couple of weeks. What piece of advice would you give to someone just about to start uni? For example, should you go out the first night or unpack and settle in? Should you bring food with you? Should you throw yourself into meeting people or let it happen naturally? All thoughts and snippets of advice are appreciated