Lancaster Uni Freshers' Week Guide (From the Perspective of Someone Who Didn't Drink in Freshers' Week)

Note: This guide can also be used for other universities, but some of the more Lancaster specific points may not be completely relevant.

1. Your college is important (but only this week)

Buy the t-shirt, learn the chants (ask your reps), drink exclusively in your own bar. If you're on campus then your flatmates will be in your college; and they'll be the people you spend the most time throughout the week and your freshers' reps will help to instil a sense of family from your college.

After freshers' you'll go into normal uni life and meet people on your course and in societies, at which point the only time your college will matter is if you play inter-college sports. I am in Fylde and some of my best friends are in Lonsdale, Furness and County. The only time the college difference matters is when we beat them at pool, when a bit of casual banter is thrown around.

2. Ask questions

You'll have a tutor and two freshers' reps; they're there to help you. I didn't know which bus to get to the train station and my rep not only told me which bus and where from, but she also found me a timetable. When I had to change my minor, my personal tutor (who didn't actually know how the procedure worked herself) rang around to find out for me while I was feeling emotional and had no idea where to start.

Freshers' reps are largely there to get you drunk (ahem, I mean make sure you aren't too drunk to get home safe), but they will also answer your questions - they were once nervous freshers with millions of questions they felt stupid for having to ask, so they completely understand where you are coming from.

3. Play sports/join societies

The Freshers' Fayre will usually be Thursday/Friday of freshers' week, and you'll probably be overwhelmed by how many things people have been bothered to make societies for. Join anything you are remotely interested in or think you could be interested in. But, make sure you take account of the cost - some are free, some have joining fees, some require you to buy equipment; but if its something you are going to enjoy and make friends doing then it has to be worth it.

I didn't do this. I signed up for the writers' society and never went. I only joined the pool team by accident, but my captain is now the best friend I have met at uni, and a lot of the other girls are totally awesome!

4. Don't feel pressured to drink a lot and go out every night.

I'm disabled and when my knee started to hurt, I went home and chilled with a hot water bottle. Your freshers' reps will encourage you to get drunk and enjoy yourself, your party animal flatmates may think you're a little weird if you don't wanna go out; but it's your life, your freshers' week and your uni experience - do whatever you like.

I even left my Big Night Out (sampling a lot of the local nightlife under the watchful eyes of your reps) early, and my female rep - who had been encouraging the rest of the group to drink as much as possible without being sick - walked me to the bus station and made me promise to text her when I got back before she would let me on the bus.

5. Speaking of the Big Night Out, wear sensible shoes!

I wore flats. My two female flatmates wore heels. Guess which of the three of us wasn't moaning about her feet our third bar?

Lancaster is quite spread out. I used to go out with Wigan, where pretty much all of the clubs are along the same street. You get bored of one club, you just pop next door; it's easy and not too bad for high heels. But Lancaster isn't anything like this. With the exception of Sugarhouse, Toast and Elements all being along the same road, you don't get clubs that are all that close together. So wear flats for the sake of your feet and the ears of your flatmates.

Quickfire advice:

6. Don't take clothes you don't think you'll wear because you'll spend forever unpacking! But do weigh everything up for its fancy dress value.

7. If you can, get the top shelf of the fridge so other people's food doesn't leak and drip onto yours - particularly if you're a vegetarian or have allergies.

8. Bring a doorstop so your new flatmates can say hi while you unpack.

9. Establish football/rugby/other sport alliances and rivalries early - makes for good banter in the bar or your kitchen while watching a match/game/race.

10. Have fun, don't be scared, and just be yourself. If people hate you for it, that's their issue.

Trick or treat? (Obligatory Halloween post)

I can't remember the age at which I stopped trick-or-treating.

I remember it was the same year that my brother stopped, even though he's three years younger than I am. It's also the same year that my parents stopped giving out sweets to trick-or-treaters. We used to turn of the lights and go to the cinema to get away from them.

We live in an area where it is not unusual to have your house egged if you ignore them, but it they seem to have gotten tamer in recent years and it seems to be an unwritten Halloween rule that if the lights are off they will assume that you're not in.

I lived in the same house for 15 years. Having studied memory, I know that that is as long as I can remember. We did live in a flat before that but I wasn't old enough at that time.

When you've been going trick-or-treating on the same street for at least a decade, you learn a little something about the people that live in the same place as you. You know which ones are 'never in', you know who gives the best sweets, who is likely to trick you, who will be dressed up as well, who will give you money and even the exact house that the old man who gives you the tangerine lives in. You know which houses have different people in from last year, who has a dog and who has kids and roughly how old they are.

I didn't realise until recently that you learn something about your neighbours on Halloween that you wouldn't learn any other time of the year. It also doesn't seem to be as useful as anything you would learn any other day of the year, but the point still stands.

The last year I went trick-or-treating I went with my best friend at the time in her estate rather than my own. It's a refreshing experience when you go trick-or-treating somewhere new, and you get all new sweets and new faces but I can't help but think back and think that I should have done my last round in my own street, for the memories more than anything else, but as is life.

This year I went out with my best friend. We dressed up (like the big kids that we are at heart), and we went out clubbing and got drunk in fancy dress. My skirt was so short she spent the entire night following me around pulling it down but overall the whole experience was good.

I don't know when the shift happened. Less than half a decade ago I was dressed as a much more innocent looking; last minute, makeshift zombie; with a different best friend asking strangers for sweets and we fast forward to the 18 year old me in the shortest skirt of my life and a pair of fishnet tights and high heeled boots (which did not last all night I will tell you now).

In Mean Girls, they say that 'Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.' When does this occur? When do you stop seeing Halloween as a fun way to get free sweets and start seeing it as an 'excuse' to dress like a slut and get drunk?

I mean, from what I've seen, most people don't need an excuse.

I'm not going to go into if I think it is begging and if children should do it and some of the extreme measures I've seen mentioned regarding it (laxative chocolate so they won't call again next year) because I don't think it's worth the debate. For me Halloween has always been fun and I think that is what it will stay as.

My definition of fun has just changed considerably since I was 5.