how to survive fresher week as a mature student

You will win the respect of your fellow students.

Book yourself a taxi back home (in advance). Have a big meal beforehand and just go nuts on a Wednesday night - I guarantee you this will be you:

I'm more worried about my wife chucking me out for trying to find the youth I never had. I'm 33 with six kids. The oldest is nearly 15 so I didn't do a lot of partying when young.

We are already disagreeing as I want to go out on a few of the events. Not all of them obviously but I don't want to spend three years doing none of the fun stuff. I am there to achieve but I still consider myself relatively young. I'm sure I'll find a way to get the balance right. Or a divorce. One or the other.

I'm 34, single mother of a just-turning 5 year old and I too am feeling anxious about FW. My uni are plugging wristbands for all the "amazing Fresher events" so I looked them up. They are all raves (hello again 1990s!), massive pub crawls, more night-clubs, more drinking, basically all about getting so lashed, you won't even remember talking to anyone the next day, nevermind their name or which course they're on. I recall the one pub-crawl I did at the age of 20 on my first attempt at uni. I ended up with painful welts on my legs (it was a three-legged one drawn by lottery, my two companion either side where both 6'4 + to my 5'6), I was nearly set alight (we couldn't untie our legs so someone thought it would be clever to burn the ties) and I ended up throwing up in some bushes on the way home feeling like I'd been poisoned. Not again, thank you!

So where are the calmer, more genteel, social activities for us older students who apparently make up 30-40% of my uni's population I find myself asking?? I'll be going to the daytime stuff, definitely looking up the mature students society and hoarding as many freebies as I can carry. But while I actually don't want to go to any of the "main events", I still really feel like I'm missing out here and even twangs of envy for those young, single and childless enough to participate! I did consider at least going to the Fresher's Ball but then I had visions of me sat on my ownsome at a table, having the odd stilted conversation with strangers and leaving early, wishing I hadn't wasted £25 on an event I didn't really enjoy when I could have been at home with my kid watching Disney movies for the price of a packet of popcorn.

Its not particularly anti-social, I do spend a lot of time with teenagers through work and volunteering and get on really well with them. I do like the occasional night out, I love dancing and music and I don't mind the odd (alcoholic) drink (usually followed by a cup of tea), so I hope to participate occasionally if I find the right venue, company and a babysitter but after 5 years of solo parenting my socialising skills, willingness and energy to participate are pretty wiped out. So I'm apprehensive to say the least and hope its not going to impact to much on the fun element of uni for me.

There are many teenagers that would love to sleep with an older woman

What a random comment.

There are many older woman who would thank them for the complement and then send them scooting along back to mother!

I'm thinking of joining the mature student society too. Freebies are good no matter what your age


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I'm 34, single mother of a just-turning 5 year old and I too am feeling anxious about FW. My uni are plugging wristbands for all the "amazing Fresher events" so I looked them up. They are all raves (hello again 1990s!), massive pub crawls, more night-clubs, more drinking, basically all about getting so lashed, you won't even remember talking to anyone the next day, nevermind their name or which course they're on. I recall the one pub-crawl I did at the age of 20 on my first attempt at uni. I ended up with painful welts on my legs (it was a three-legged one drawn by lottery, my two companion either side where both 6'4 + to my 5'6), I was nearly set alight (we couldn't untie our legs so someone thought it would be clever to burn the ties) and I ended up throwing up in some bushes on the way home feeling like I'd been poisoned. Not again, thank you!

So where are the calmer, more genteel, social activities for us older students who apparently make up 30-40% of my uni's population I find myself asking?? I'll be going to the daytime stuff, definitely looking up the mature students society and hoarding as many freebies as I can carry. But while I actually don't want to go to any of the "main events", I still really feel like I'm missing out here and even twangs of envy for those young, single and childless enough to participate! I did consider at least going to the Fresher's Ball but then I had visions of me sat on my ownsome at a table, having the odd stilted conversation with strangers and leaving early, wishing I hadn't wasted £25 on an event I didn't really enjoy when I could have been at home with my kid watching Disney movies for the price of a packet of popcorn.

I'm not that anti-social, I do spend a lot of time with teenagers through work and volunteering and get on really well with them. I like the occasional night out, I love dancing and music and I don't mind the odd (alcoholic) drink (usually followed by a cup of tea), so I hope to participate occasionally if I find the right venue, company and a babysitter but after 5 years of solo parenting my socialising skills, willingness and energy to participate are pretty wiped out. So I'm apprehensive to say the least and hope its not going to impact too much on the fun element of uni for me.

Molly, are you sure there aren't other events going on that aren't based around drinking? I'm going to be a mature fresher (28), and at the university I'm going to, which has a pretty low percentage of mature students (U of Bath) there are a lot of events as well as the club nights (which I will not be attending), such as a quiz, murder mystery night, salsa party, comedy night, ceilildh, karaoke, open mic, nightly pizza and board games, nightly film showings etc. I thought that universities were trying to offer more events that aren't alcohol based, due to concerns about the ridiculous drinking culture in UK universities. Of course there are the nightly club events too, and will be everywhere, but I think places are definitely making more of an effort to offer alternatives than they used to.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff they've got going there. If my uni is planning anything of the sorts, they're keeping schtum. But it could be a marketing tactic since all they are currently promoting (except for a brief mention of the society/business stands) is a big festival type event on which they evidently spend a lot of money. Perhaps when they have flogged that to death and its sold out, they'll come back to us and say "aww, you missed out on the good stuff, but here's some other cheap/free events you can go to as compensation"... Good point about the drinking culture and promoting sensible socialising, not that I think it'll be that popular with a lot of students. It took a few horrific hangovers for me to learn my lessons about alcohol, its a bit of a rite of passage.

I'm more worried about my wife chucking me out for trying to find the youth I never had. I'm 33 with six kids. The oldest is nearly 15 so I didn't do a lot of partying when young.

We are already disagreeing as I want to go out on a few of the events. Not all of them obviously but I don't want to spend three years doing none of the fun stuff. I am there to achieve but I still consider myself relatively young. I'm sure I'll find a way to get the balance right. Or a divorce. One or the other.

Which university are you going to? I think some still haven't released their full programme of events, and presumably smaller universities will have fewer events than larger ones.

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Well, I think SU Big Brother are watching us, received a newsletter today, again plugging their amazing festival but with the addendum that there will soon be details of events for us boring folk, including film screening, student parent & kids days [kudos for that one!], pub quizzes and bingo. Bingo?? I'm not that old...

Haha! I think bingo is supposedly quite cool now, but I wouldn't blame you for giving it a miss! Glad there gong to be some other events though, that sounds much better!

I'm 24, turning 25 in November and am going into halls (gulp). I'm past the stage where I want to go out every night and get drunk. I'm really hoping that I get put into halls with people my own age who would rather just go to the pub for a couple of drinks than go out clubbing! I'm worried I'm going to be living with 18 years olds who think I'm the boring old fart who keeps telling them to take a coat with them when they go out!