What's on in Cardiff?

It was out with the old and now with a bang it’s time for in with the new.

Serene, lazy days of summer explode into a week of buzz and laughter of the freshers.  Be it a week or fortnight depending on university allocations, this is when the newbies hit the ground running. The call to battle for places is over, the smoke has cleared to reveal that the call to enrol, to orientate and to party has been answered with complete enthusiasm. It’s time to move into Uni, discover you’re nearest yellowcard and just how cheap the student bar is!

Some may take longer than others to acclimatise to independent living, to pubs and clubs without mum and dad timing you home. Yes,this week is for new students to get settled into university, get to know their way around, enrol, join societies, make friends that may last a lifetime and enjoy some great cheap student nights out.
As new student you might want to do the odd  sensible thing like make sure you’re enrolled, choose your modules, sort out your NUS or Uni card, fine tune your digs and look for a part time job to keep those beans on toast bubbling on the table.

Freshers’ week is much more well known for the fun antics new students enjoy when celebrating getting away from home and embracing Uni life.
The fun side of it is students get the chance to explore the city and make some new friends. There’s a lot going on in the student union and freshers fair will be a great chance to sign up to societies, sports clubs and find out about some of the club nights and promotions going on to welcome all the new students.

Everyone will be giving you advice on how to enjoy yourself and some of the pitfalls to avoid, key to which is going to be budgeting and not blowing your loan all at once.

Cardiff Universities jargon buster sums up being a fresher and freshers week like this:

“Fresher (and Freshers’ Week) A first year student at a university. Freshers’ Week refers to the week before the start of the Autumn Semester. Usually new students will move into their Halls of Residence during the weekend before Freshers’ Week and spend Freshers’ Week enjoying social and registering with various clubs or societies. Students will meet their housemates and settle into their accommodation. There might be some introductory lectures for the courses studied and there will be plenty of time to get acquainted with a new city. Freshers’ Week, probably most renowned for its social activities, is designed to allow new students to get to know as many new people as possible and to acquaint them with the pubs, clubs and other social activities related to the union!”

A few tips from old students for making the most of freshers week:

• Break old ties.. don’t plan on calling old friends every night, go out and make new ones!
• Invest... in pub discount cards, yellow cards, pre-booking some of the big freshers events etc.
• Join various societies.. you can always ditch the boring ones
• Dressing gowns may not be cool but are essential for the constant 3am fire drills on campus as well as hangover day.
• Tinned food and pot noodles, not healthy living but healthier than steeling your housemates pizza... remember the essentials with a budget in mind.

This all might seem a bit responsible, so just to let new students what their really in for we asked people to sum up Freshers on twitter, asking “with all the students coming, how would you sum up fresher’s week for them?”

Here’s some of the responses...

“Sex, drugs, alcohol and not remembering any of it!”

“A glorified piss up from what I’m told.lol”

“Getting sharked by final year students, buying too many posters, being judged in 6 seconds, beer and dancing, usually regrets”

“boozy”

“eye opening... in more ways than they ever believed possible”

“carnage every night”

“a hideous mess of pointless shenanigans that ruin your overdraft, but necessary!”

Freshers is sure to be carnage with everything from sophisticated events like the Freshers’ Ball to the MegaLash a full-on bar crawl.