Freshers week?

Hi, I don’t do drinking due to my religious beliefs but if you want to make friends ‘freshers week’ is vital but that’s literally just clubbing? Where do you find the societies, is it more than one event in freshers week?

Hi there.

Some unis have sober societies where you can meet others who don't drink, due to many different reasons, at events they run throughout the year so try not to worry. Perhaps have a look into some of the events your uni is running at freshers as I'm sure there'll be many different things going on.

Best wishes for starting uni.

Thank you very much! How many do you recommend I attend to out of the 1 week freshers week?

As many as you want. Don't feel the need to do activities you're not comfortable with if you don't want to. Good friends won't pressurise you to do things you don't want to as they'll respect your choice not to drink.

Hope this makes sense.
Best wishes.

For us freshers week was hundreds of daytime events from all sorts of societies, chances to try out sports clubs, academic talks, tours, fairs etc., and then in the evening there were club nights, but also more society events, film nights, accommodation quizzes, all sorts of things. The drinking events made up a tiny proportion overall, I think I went to one and none of my new friendships were made there so don't worry! Freshers week is definitely more than "just clubbing" at a lot of unis.

Hi, I don’t do drinking due to my religious beliefs but if you want to make friends ‘freshers week’ is vital but that’s literally just clubbing? Where do you find the societies, is it more than one event in freshers week?

Hi, not to worry, there are plenty of things to do that don't include drinking or clubbing during freshers week. Freshers week actually consists of a lot of freebie fairs (my favourite thing!), free dominos pizza at the freebie fairs, there will be society fairs, sports fairs, the students union will hold a lot of events, in person or online, games you can participate in, with prizes usually being some university merch! These are a lot of fun, definitely get involved inn them. The events run by the students union are also a good way to meet your students union officers.

A good thing to do is to invite/go with flat mates to these events, to the freebie fairs etc. It's a good way to get to know each other and have fun in a non-alcoholic environment without any potential awkwardness.

When freshers week is approaching, look online for your universities freshers week, they should have a list of events lined up, so you can see in advance which ones you want to go to and plan accordingly! Societies will also be hosting taster sessions, these are a lot of fun to get involved in, meet new people, and find societies you want to join long term.

I hope you have a fantastic freshers week, and that this alleviates some of your worries

- Rosie

Hi, I don’t do drinking due to my religious beliefs but if you want to make friends ‘freshers week’ is vital but that’s literally just clubbing? Where do you find the societies, is it more than one event in freshers week?

Hi!

There are plenty of events set up for freshers who do not wish to drink! This will vary between universities but it is worth checking the Students Union website for the university you are interested in or there are normally Facebook groups set up for freshers containing events organised by students. These are also useful to join as it is a good way to contact people you will be studying/living with and to organise events.

Most universities offer a freshers fayre which has stands for all societies they offer where you will be able to sign up and take part in events. For example, the societies I joined in my first year offered weekly socials which did involve alcohol but there were also activities such as pizza nights, film nights and day trips out.

Best wishes with your future studies,
Trinity
2nd Year Politics and Sociology

Hi, I don’t do drinking due to my religious beliefs but if you want to make friends ‘freshers week’ is vital but that’s literally just clubbing? Where do you find the societies, is it more than one event in freshers week?

They'll be lots of other stuff on like bowling/bbq/minigolf... and you can still go pre-drinks or pubs or clubs and just not drink. I think some people find this daunting but you'll be fine.

TBH their is a huge benefit to not drinking (even if you go out) and thats you'll be much more hydrated and energetic during the days (which means you can make it to more taster sessions) lots of sports teams & societies basically run a session to get a flavour of what the group is like (they are never perfect as these groups are student run events and a taster session might have to cater to 2 or 3x what a normal society meetup would be at a taster session).

Just do what your comfortable with, and speak to as many people as possible and try and get something out of your comfort zone (uni has so many funded opportunities that are much harder to do after uni when you dont have an SU subsidising your hobby).

Thank you very much! Where can I find these opportunities/societies or is it too early for it to be open now but open in September? I should check more but so far the only thing I seen on Facebook for university of Liverpool is full week clubbing 😵*💫

Thank you very much! Where can I find these opportunities/societies or is it too early for it to be open now but open in September? I should check more but so far the only thing I seen on Facebook for university of Liverpool is full week clubbing 😵*💫

Thank you very much! I checked societies for the university of Liverpool but there were rarely any but someone said there will be loads on the day, I wish unis made an entire page talking about freshers week, it's all over the place with looking at Facebook/websites and ill definitely look into that! for Liverpool, the only freshers week tickets I found were clubbing.

So societies are basically a bunch of smaller student led organizations (groups can vary from a dozen or so to a few hundred depending on what the group does), mostly you'll see them at the freshers fair where they will give you info on their taster session (which will be in week 0 or week 1 of uni (week 0 = freshers week)). They will most likely also put details on their individual social media pages, students have just broken up for summer so probably busy taking their mind off these things, these groups start to kick in after results day and tend to really get going after results day.

I was part of a couple sports teams at university including managing them; and at this stage in the year things are quiet as people are taking a break from university until about September, typically "we" would do a few social media posts after results day and things (and a couple summer work-outs & socials for current members only who are still around the uni over summer but these are very much small things) and then from early September we would do a pre-season, a handful of freshers will be invited to pre-season (who have good experience in the sport), but where we meet most of them is at a taster session which happen during freshers week. But most societies kind of shut down over summer, it'll be mid-September they really start advertising to Freshers.