Fresher Advice...

[Prophet Tenebrae]

It's that time of year - my suggestion here is that everyone give a few choice pieces of advice or information along the lines of "you'll meet dozens of people, you'll find out their name, degree choice and home town - then never see them again."

Then maybe we can put the best ones in a poll, rather exciting - what?

[blinkey]

Cherish the way your roommate treats you the first few days. He/She will never again be quite as nice or as considerate.

Same goes for you, of course.

[paloma]

Make most of the free coffee/tea/hot choc machine brought into the common room in Macintosh. What they don't tell you is that it is just there for Fresher's week. After this, they take it away. And lock it up. And you'll only see it if you make it down to breakfast. Which, if you're doing arts, you won't.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

First year is a joke - don't work too hard or you'll be burned out for 3rd and 4th year when stuff is hard.

[Cain]

"just because there is no destination in sight does not mean the athe road is not worth travelling."

and get to know lots of people; a solid core and lots of randoms. you'll appreciate them later.

[hr]
I will diminish, and go into fourth year, and remain Cain

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I FUCKIN' LOVE RANDOMS!

[James]

Just a couple of things:

Don't automatically say yes to the first person to offer to be your academic parent. Thankfully, in this case, you can pick your parents.

Only bury bodies under the floorboards if you live on the ground floor / basement ... that's a mistake you don't make twice.

Freshers' Flu is just an excuse for what happens when people encounter (a) loads of other people at once, and (b) the Scottish climate.

Make friends with your Hall staff, so that when you eventually break something / burn it / put your foot through it (etc.), they might look more kindly upon you.

Art History is not a real subject, but don't tell its students that or you'll get a mug of lentil soup in your face.

Geology Rocks, apparently.

At Societies' Fayre, be sure to sign up for all the free food and/or drink events you can, attend, then never go again.

Classics is just Latin for people too lazy to learn it.

Some people find it hard to tell the difference between humourous and serious messages ... but that's life.

[hoopy froodette]

[s]James wrote on 23:31, 29th Aug 2004:
Classics is just Latin for people too lazy to learn it.


[annoying pedantry]Err, that's Classical Studies, actually. Classics is Latin and Greek with a bit of Ancient History. Nothing lazy about that![/annoying pedantry]

[hr]
Nothing succeeds like a toothless budgie.

[James]

[s]hoopy froodette wrote on 23:49, 29th Aug 2004:
[s]James wrote on 23:31, 29th Aug 2004:[i]
Classics is just Latin for people too lazy to learn it.


[annoying pedantry]Err, that's Classical Studies, actually. Classics is Latin and Greek with a bit of Ancient History. Nothing lazy about that![/annoying pedantry]
[/i]



Good point, well-made ... and tacit agreement with the overall point I made - it was Classical Studies at which I was having a go.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

James has reminded me...

If you sign-up for a society, don't pay upon signing up. As invariably you will sign-up for far more socities than you will ever attend - and hey, why throw the money away?

[Buffy]

[s]James wrote on 23:31, 29th Aug 2004:
Just a couple of things:

Art History is not a real subject, but don't tell its students that or you'll get a mug of lentil soup in your face.


I think we're past lentil soup. Coffee, scalding hot coffee would be my personal choice. Fair enough to get this from science students, but I once had a philosophy student try to tell me this . . . I was not impressed. Both classes involve studying the creative works of "enlightened" people . . . grr. So what if I like to stare at pretty paintings for an hour and call it a lecture? I firmly believe that science students are *allegedly* jealous bc we get a Masters and they don't.

[quarterstaff]

"take what you can...

... give nothing back"

[Anon.]

Start saying hello to people as soon as you arrive. If you don't get to know some people straight away, then you'll have to try and inviegle your way later into groups of people who already know each other, which is never good. If you end up hating them, you can always just drop them.

[Animal]

Hang on Quarterstaff - I think you'll find that's exactly what NOT to do.

[quarterstaff]

[s]Animal wrote on 02:13, 30th Aug 2004:
Hang on Quarterstaff - I think you'll find that's exactly what NOT to do.



huh? sorry if you didnt get the reference... my post mean "watch pirates of the carribean far too many times and enjoy lots of alcohol"


besides whats wrong with a litle bit of student theft in freshers week? the police just amnesties all the time... no one will get done.

cheer up!
[hr]
god damned mongolians!

[Animal]

Oh, I get it now.

Maybe if you'd added "Aaarrrr" at the end...

[buffy]

This may sound kind of geeky, but I wish that I had carried a small notebook around with me for writing down people's names (with a short description) so that I might have remembered who all those new people were . . .

[Guest]

[s]paloma wrote on 22:03, 29th Aug 2004:
Make most of the free coffee/tea/hot choc machine brought into the common room in Macintosh. you'll only see it if you make it down to breakfast. Which, if you're doing arts, you won't.


What! Chattan served breakfast - I didn't see that in my year of residence there.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Oh yes, as another thread reminded me - Freshers, do not choose a language module lightly. They're not for everyone, especially slackers.

[Rufus]

Try not to judge people on how they first behave and come across to you. Nerves and homesickness and *cough* good old alcohol make wankers of us all. Loads of people I'd gaily put down as prats turned out to be rather nice in the end

Also, go to everything you can in Freshers Week and make the most of dossing about St Andrews in all it's drunken surreality before you have to face the guilt of not attending a handful of crucial lectures.