[stuartcummings]

Heard varying stories from different people - some saying that by the second day of Freshers everyone is in the library! And some saying that it's a bit more relaxed - I guess it depends on the course...

I'm going up to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences (Physical) in October, and just wondering how much of a freshers week I'll get before it all gets into the flow of work!

[Topaz_eyes]

Generally, you'll move in on Saturday/Sunday and lectures start on Thursday! There's still stuff going on all through that week though. You will also have lectures on a Saturday, in case you didn't know that already

It's short but they put a lot of stuff in it! I don't know anyone who was in the library in fresher's week... there was a lot to do

[illusionz]

Depends what you want to do.... If you want to get boozy then there are plenty of opportunities. However the clubs all tend to be rather unpleasantly busy as all the people who will never go out for the rest of the year feel they ought to in freshers.

[dbou]

As a maths student at Churchill I had a pre-freshers 3-day maths course. They didn't waste any time, a question they set us in that was a previous years tripos question! Going through that certainly put a damper on Freshers week but I still had a great time. Highlights being kicked out of Queen's, wandering around Trinity at 3am with chips after a night out and having bottle boat races in the pond out front

[Blutooth]

When not reading their textbooks and journals, the Cambridge freshers take the opportunity to flip out and go nuts- a bit like this guy who didn't read lol.

Spoiler:

Show

[stuartcummings]

Ok cheers all

Are all the freshers week activities/events done in colleges or are they all done throughout the uni or by department?

[TimmonaPortella]

Probably relatively tame. I had some good nights but got a huge reading list thrown at me mid way through, yeah.

Everything I did was in college, not sure if things are done on a wider scale.

[thefish_uk]

(Original post by stuartcummings)
Ok cheers all

Are all the freshers week activities/events done in colleges or are they all done throughout the uni or by department?

Generally by college - it's a bit like starting school again in that you'll have a group of 100-200-ish people, representing the whole variety of subjects, who you will be living near and will see in the canteen/bar every night. On Sunday-Wednesday we had organised stuff in the daytime - IIRC Sunday and Monday this was induction type stuff in the college (a mixture of ice-breaking/team-building activities and more formal things such as Matriculation and some orientation talks), on Tuesday and Wednesday we had induction in the department with some welcome lectures, at this stage you will still be making friends with the people from your college who do your subject who are likely to become the people you're closest to for the next three/four years. In the evening there would be something organised by the college student union which would end up with lots of drinking, possibly in a club. And on Thursday term starts properly - lectures, labs, supervisions, the whole thing.

The important thing is though is that, whilst freshers' week is an amazing time (purely because of the sheer level of excitement - I get nostalgic just thinking about it) you will probably not find your feet properly until a few months in; the friends I've kept since leaving, and the activities outside work I properly got involved in (to the point where my friends would ask "Simon, are you sure it's engineering you're here to do a degree in?"), I didn't find until late first year or after that.