The First Week
Freshers is officially over, and what a crazy week it has been! I'm not even sure where to start... Move-in day was extremely stressful but we got all my stuff in pretty quickly, filled out all the paperwork and then went out for lunch with my parents and sister. After that, they chucked me out of the car, hugged me goodbye and that was it. I was officially on my own. The rest of that day was spent unpacking everything and trying to find space to put things, hanging up photos, decorating, and in general making it a bit more homely. I met all of my flatmates (bar the elusive Japanese exchange student), but everyone was really welcoming and chatty. Surprisingly, it's an all-girls flat despite none of us having applied for one, and this seems to be quite common throughout the accommodation. I would've quite liked a mixed flat just because my course is very girl-heavy too and it's nice to have a balance (I went to a mixed school as well, so I'm used to having both around), but there haven't been any problems so far. I did have tickets to go out on the Sunday but I ended up not going since I was absolutely shattered and none of my flatmates were going either.
Talking of going out, if you're the kind of person that wants to be going out every night of freshers or needs to party at least once a week, then this is not the uni for you. Sheffield would probably be a much better option. At home, I usually go out drinking/clubbing every fortnight, so I'm not a huge party person but I do enjoy going out. Even for me, I wish I could've gone out more during freshers. Of course, there are loads of options and there are freshers club nights on every night during the week, but finding people to go with can be difficult, particularly if your flat aren't that into it. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, SOAS freshers isn't the best, I was talking to my flatmates about it a few nights ago and they all agree. There are some good events, but day-time events in particular seem to be for very specific groups of people so you can have days where you have nothing on until 6pm. For me, that wasn't really a problem because I busied myself with other things, but if you're someone that gets homesick then it could make things difficult.
Saying that, I did meet some really lovely people and got to know some of the girls from my course. If I'm going to give one piece of advice it's to join group chats! I often have the SOAS freshers and accommodation chats on mute because they can get a bit hectic, but the Korean chat has been great for meeting up with people. Try to chat to as many people in person as you possibly can, especially people at your departmental welcome who you'll be spending the next 4 years with. There was also a pizza in the park event on the first day which was really helpful for meeting people from all over the uni and getting you more comfortable with meeting people. It was overwhelming at first, but definitely worth it.
To wrap up what freshers week was like for me: weird. That's the only word I can really use to describe it. The whole week felt as though I was on this big summer camp/school trip since everything is so foreign, all the people are new, and you're trying to learn how to live alone in the middle of it all. I was very slightly homesick on the first night, but since then I've been fine (it's worth noting that I've never been a homesick person, though) and for the most part it's been good fun. It was extremely tiring - spending all day socialising and trying to make conversation is apparently a lot of hard work haha - but all in all a positive week.
We were also given our timetables! As you know, my course title is BA Korean but my optional module is Intro to International Relations.
** The 2019-2020 BA Korean course no longer has optional modules
Monday: 9am-11am Elementary Korean Tutorial
Tuesday: 9am-11am IR Tutorial
3pm-5pm Elementary Korean Tutorial
Wednesday: 9am-11am Elementary Korean Tutorial
11am-1pm Modern Korean History Lecture
Thursday: 9am-11am Elementary Korean Tutorial
Friday: 1pm-3pm Elementary Korean Tutorial
3pm-5pm Introduction to IR Lecture