Bath or Bath

I visited the city of Bath last week, and it made me remember one of the conversations I had during one of my first nights in Leicester: the pronunciation of ‘bath’ (also ‘grass’ and ‘laugh’). I can almost guarantee that during Freshers you will have at least one conversation about the accent you didn’t think you had. I was pretty much the only Southerner in my house, so got laughed at quite a bit during the first few weeks by the Northerners!

So that’s one of the things you can expect during Freshers, but what else?

• Registration with the geography department – try to get all the admin stuff out of the way relatively early to make the most of your free time.
• Visiting the Freshers Fair on the first two days of term (I’ll post another blog about this nearer the time).
• There is usually a meet-and-greet session within the Geography department, following an introductory lecture. This allows you to meet other people in your year group, as well as some of the second and third years, who will be there to answer any questions you may have. I’d definitely recommend going to this.
• A few, but not many, lectures in the first week, including one about the use of the library – sounds a bit boring but it’s quite useful, and easy to sit through.
• A LOT of conversations with people you have just met comprised of:

1. Where are you from?
2. What are you studying?
3. What halls are you in?  (this gets a bit tedious, but will settle down after a while).

• Some really good nights out which will help you get to know the Leicester night life better (check out the Leicester Freshers Facebook page for more info on the events)
• A lot of alcohol-related games – especially ‘I Have Never’… a great way to get to know your new housemates, but also a way for a lot of not information about you to come out! Remember to be relatively sensible with your alcohol, you don’t want to get a bad reputation within the first two weeks, because that will stick – and you also don’t want to make your Freshers Flu worse…
• The Freshers Flu – this usually hits after week 1, or week 2 if you’re lucky, and you be able to tell when the majority of your year group are suffering from all the sniffing and coughing in lectures. Lemsip, berocca and hot chocolate are my favourite cures.

Basically Freshers is a one of the best parts of the year, and although it’s not all just fun and clubbing, if you sort out all the admin first, that leaves more time for enjoying the fortnight – I hope you’re excited!