Looking back, I can now appreciate that university is the essence of liberation. Freed for the first time from any constraints of a family setting, the overprotective school you were chained to for years or the friends you’ve known since you were scamps, you are now free to do whatever you want, as you want, whenever! In this vein, first year becomes all about drink, drugs and sex sex sex. Do not go to lectures, do not write essays and fuck knowing your limits. Go out every night with the aim of getting lucky and if not, getting so hammered you don’t care. Tequila shots with salt and lemon, strawpedos, then down a pint of the original wife-beater, Miss Stella Artois herself. Wander into St Pauls in the bleakest hours of night to buy interesting little plastic bags off shady men with thick Jamaican accents. When your new best mate’s long-term girlfriend comes up to visit, have a crack. Climb on top of buildings/statues/walls/trees/boats/anything, providing there’s a certain risk you might do yourself serious injury should you fall off. Stay up partying until you notice the soul-destroying grey light of dawn out the window. Stay up partying for longer anyway.

Second year and you might want to try concentrating on some aspect of the degree. The subject you are studying should by rights arouse your intellectual passion and fervour, but should you spend three years in your room reading or seeking work experience, you will have wasted everything that is simply there for the taking. Always remember that as much as university is about getting a degree, this is also your golden chance to enjoy yourself and to ascertain a firmer notion of your place in the world while you are still gloriously young, relatively responsibility-free and ostensibly loaded.

Discard any previously held prejudices, go out, meet new people and discover the world for yourself. If you have a secret love for something, seek out the club or society that caters for it and join it, whether it’s music, theatre or ultimate frisbee! Play sports however rusty you may be, get a DJ slot on the SU radio, do whatever. In the endless hours of eventual career work, you may seriously never have this much free time again so make the most of it!

University is a discovery, a discovery of yourself and of others; a wildly experimental exploration delving through social norms and breaking down barriers. Some may see it as a daunting challenge but if you’re clever, you’ll grasp it with both hands open.

Patrick Cash