Thursday 21 September 2017

On Freshers' Week

Hello, thank you for calling in, I'm delighted to see you here.  I am counting my blessings and I hope you are all safe, wherever you are.  I am certainly not going to gripe about the weather when there are hurricanes and earthquakes on the other side of the Atlantic.
 
Thirty-four years ago this month I packed up my suitcase and went off to college in Essex, beginning an adventure which would last for three years.  The Hall of Residence was over-subscribed but all first year students who wanted it were guaranteed accommodation, so I was allocated a place in a shared house which was earmarked for demolition to make way for a new road.  There were eight of us altogether, all girls, and my bed was in the room at the front of the house which would have originally been the lounge.  I had to share this room with another girl who, unfortunately for me, had never had to share a bedroom before and frankly, there was a good deal of tension because she had absolutely no idea of the give and take necessary to make it work.  She was selfish.  There, I have called a spade a spade.  All of the rooms in the house were full of girls except the kitchen and the bathroom - oh yes, there was only one bathroom between eight of us, no shower, and the loo was in the bathroom so if you needed a wee and someone was in the bath you just had to cross your legs and hang on.  There was a table and chairs in the kitchen and another in the large hall, but we had no sitting room.  We had no 'phone, no television, no washing machine, obviously we had no computers and none of us had a car, so how on earth did we cope??  Fabulously well.
 
I think that this year's crop of Freshers would be absolutely horrified.  A condemned house?  Sharing a room?  No ensuite shower room?  Trips to the laundrette?  No telecoms?  No cars?  How on earth did we survive??
 
There was another difference, too: Freshers' Week was the first week of term.  We had to contend with a full programme of lectures and tutorials as well as finding our way around, both the college and the town, making new friendships and a full programme of social activities.  We got up at 8am every day and went to bed at 3am every night and the excitement, the nerves and the adrenaline got us through.  The evening activities took place in the Student Union bar and I have been trying to remember what I would have been drinking - certainly not spirits, firstly because they were too expensive and secondly, because they were too middle-aged!  I don't think I was drinking beer then so if it was alcohol it was probably cider, or possibly a glass of the ghastly wine which was served in pubs then.  I don't remember any of the girls getting drunk to the point of incapacitation, although I do remember being scared by the behaviour of some of the boys who drank eight or nine pints of beer and couldn't control themselves.  The point of our evenings was, I think, to meet each other, to have fun together and to celebrate our freedom. 
 
 
Me in October 1983 in Cedar Avenue, Chelmsford, writing a letter!
 
In many British universities Freshers' Week now lasts for a fortnight.  The teaching doesn't begin until the second week, or possibly the third, so for at least a week, the activities are purely social and appear to revolve around alcohol - The Mathematician told me that during her Freshers' Week, three years ago, more than £1,000-worth of alcohol was laid out in her Hall every evening for a week.  I was shocked.  She pointed out to me that this was for more than one hundred students so it worked out at less than £10 per student and I pointed out to her that you can buy a bottle of gin for less than £10 in a supermarket.  I certainly wouldn't drink a whole bottle of gin every evening for a week or two.
 
I am trying to work out why this bothers me so much.  Well, for a start, the extra week or two at the beginning of term means that an extra week or two's rent has to be paid, and you have to pay extra for the Freshers' Week activities.  What bothers me more than that is the total reliance on alcohol, the assumption that you can't make new friends or have a good time without it.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a drink as much as anyone does, certainly as much as any fifty-two year old woman with a penchant for Sauvignon Blanc or a gin and tonic does, but I can meet new people without being drunk, even though I am naturally quite shy.  I suppose the point of the alcohol is to remove the initial reserve which may hold people back and prevent them mixing with each other, but I think it may be more useful in the long run for students to learn how to do that while they are sober.  After all, being a student is all about learning, isn't it?  It has also been reported this year that at some universities, students are being issued with wristbands which bear the name and address of their hall so that if they get very drunk while they are out and can't remember where they live, a friendly soul/ taxi driver / police officer can ensure they get safely home.  Really??  Shouldn't they be learning some personal safety strategies, for example, that you don't get so drunk that you can't get yourself home safely, and that when you go out, you stay with your friends so that you can look after each other?  Two years ago a young man went out clubbing in Shrewsbury and got so drunk that he rang his mother in the early hours of the morning to tell her that he didn't know where he was and ask her to help him.  She drove to Shrewsbury and spent a couple of hours driving around, looking for him, but couldn't find him.  A search was mounted and a few weeks later, his body was found in the River Severn.  Every time this happens, and it happened again a couple of weeks ago, there are calls for the river to be fenced off, but I don't hear any calls for people not to drink so much that they place themselves in danger. 
 
When I was a Fresher, we were all issued with a friendly little booklet, produced by the Students' Union, which gave us advice about all of this, and other personal safety tips... including what to do if you were arrested by the Police!
 
See you soon.
 
Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x
 
 
 

16 comments:

  1. It is sad the immaturity that is being encouraged in college students. They take no personal responsibility. Our daughter went to university when she was 16 (graduated a year early) and lived in the dorm the first year because we were in Turkey and she was here in the states. She did fine because she knew she had to take care of herself.
    The alcohol bothers me too. Here in the states the drinking age is 21 so the school would be serving drinks anyway.

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    1. Both my girls survived it, Janet, and I like to think that they know where their boundaries are, but many young people don't seem to know how to handle it all. x

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  2. I totally agree with you! The drinking here is just as bad, and freshman's week is outrageous and I'm sure many of the students regret their actions by the next day, or at least when they start job hunting and those embarrassing social media photos of them are still lurking on the internet. My daughter and son both attended university/college before they were legal drinking age (19 here in Canada). I'm thankful that they were responsible about their first years and that afterwards they didn't run into trouble either. The story of the mother searching for her son is just crushing.

    On a completely different topic, you look SO much like I did at that age ... right down to the hair style ... that we could have been twins. I even had the exact same poster of the cougar in the grasses on my bedroom wall!! Kind of weird seeing this photo.

    Wendy

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    1. Alas, I can't take any credit for the poster because that photo was taken in my friend's room, but you and I obviously had great taste! Students here are warned to be careful about what's posted on their social media accounts and I know that The Mathematician deleted some of hers - I was once informed that 4 out of 5 job applications to our local police force are rejected because of what's on the applicants' social media accounts. 4 out of 5! x

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  3. More and more these days I think the world has gone mad, emphasis is given to the wrong things, opportunities are lost, money wasted and there's so much stress about too. Nice photo though. x

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    1. Bless you, Karen - it's the freshness of youth! If I mention the words "Hell" and "handcart" together, does that make me sound old?? x

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  4. I agree with you and with the previous comments. It is a sad reflection on society that people don't take responsibility for their own actions and it isn't just the youth of today who are guilty of that. I've seen plenty of people on television, who are old enough to know better, staggering about drunk or passed out on the street. What I wonder is how on earth they can afford it?

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    1. Good point, Marie. Apparently the statistics show that young people are drinking less and the biggest worry is people of my age who drink at home, but why on earth would I go out to drink when it's so expensive? I can buy a 75cl bottle in the supermarket for little more than the price of a glass in a pub or bar. x

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  5. I remember the story of the boy lost in the river on the local news. We are living in an upside down world at the moment when trivial things seem more important than real life and wonderful opportunities are wasted. I loved reading about your time at Uni, something I missed out on as I left school after GCEs and went to work. I did all my studies later, A levels, OU degree etc. I wasn't as ready to study at 16 as I was at 26:)

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    1. Rosie, I firmly believe that there is a right time for all of us - my husband wasn't ready to go to university until he was 37, by which time he had a wife, two children and a mortgage, so it was a completely different kind of experience. We're all different. x

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  6. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post. Memories of my first week at college in 1973. No freshers week for me either. I do agree with your comments. The whole binge drinking scene these days is very worrying I agree. Hopefully common sense prevails. B x

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    1. Thanks Barbara. I think common sense does prevail eventually - at least, I have to hope that it does! x

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  7. I often wonder what my teens will do, the oldest boy isn't interested in uni. He's in his second yr of A Levels and doesn't really know what he wants to do.
    I couldn't get into college as I didn't have the grades but I started work and did a few night school classes. I then started with the OU for a few yrs but returned and finished it many yrs later. Cx

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    1. I don't think that everyone is ready for university when they are 18 and especially now that students have to rack up such enormous levels of debt - The Mathematician will leave owing £40,000+. She is beginning to wish that she had started work when she left school and learned while she earned. I don't know how young people are supposed to earn enough to keep themselves, save up for pensions, repay their student debts AND save up to buy a house, especially when interest rates on savings are so pathetically low. They have been badly let down. Well done on taking the OU route, it's hard to find enough time to study when you are looking after a family so it's a great achievement. x

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  8. I agree with everything you say. I went to uni in 1973 and as far as I remember, Freshers' Week was just a societies fair and a ball (which I didn't go to because I was already going out with him who became my husband and he wasn't at uni). Fortunately we live in Scotland so university is free (well, "free"), though there were fees of £1000 when my children went there, which seemed bad enough. My soon-to-be-born newest granddaughter will grow up in London, alas, and I'm already worrying about her tuition fees!

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    1. I remember being a little caught out by the Freshers' Ball: I bought a lovely dress to wear, fortunately something rather understated, but I needn't have bothered because it turned out to be just a disco in the SU bar, nothing special at all. I think the government is going to have to do something about tuition fees in England, and certainly about the disgraceful 6% interest on student loans. It's all spiralled out of control. x

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