To follow up on an earlier post I made, for today’s post here is a fun collection of badges of honour and shame you can award you new and old housemates, this time focusing on the period of Fresher’s Week/Month (depending on your institution) for their endeavours in kicking off the start of the new academic year. Your winners (or losers) needn’t be freshers themselves and these are formed from my own fond memories of undergraduate life as well as those from when I was a student warden and Masters student.
Big Spender
This is for the one who played the welcoming weeks, hard. The one who drank the bar dry, who managed to buy an entire new wardrobe, the ones who felt they could show Vegas how gambling is done, or cashed in on their independence and bought the finest food for their first meals as independents. Whether they’ll be on Noodles for the rest of the semester remains to be seen, but for those few weeks for them and their potential new found friends, it was totally worth it.
The Calender
In a tribute to a dear friend from uni, there are often people looking for fun and seeking beyond the boundaries of friendship. Given you may not know everyone very well yet, there can be a lack of obligation felt to stick to any one person you may have travelled the bases with or at least exchanged contacts with. So this is for the people, who can count off names across their day(s) of outings to the tune of a Craig David classic.
The Troublemaker
When it’s only been a couple of weeks, there’s always one or two that manage to break some form of rules and you can tell are going to be trouble in one form or another. Keep an eye out for these and prepare to offer a kind hand or a word of caution. If they are beyond your help, at least if you’re in the right place (in the UK) and the right time you may be able to get an easy £250!
Challenge Accepted
In this modern age of social media, challenges are everywhere and achieving them all for some is a true sense of gratification and belonging. Whether it’s taking buckets of ice, replicating choreography or raising money for charity – these people are up for anything and will do all they can do win the task.
The Illusionist
Whilst there are many students who are visible and social creatures, there are some that are rarely seen, but known to be there by things magically moving in your house/apartment/dorm as if by itself and others that seem to have developed a teleporting technique to allow them to appear behind you out of nowhere without you hearing them ever leave their room. Likewise they can vanish into a crowd in seconds and never be found again for the rest of the day or night, maybe turning up again unexplained by your side.Finally, there’s the type of people that remain visible to you, but seem to be able to pull out just what you need out of nowhere – such as gum, a drink, random tools or your handbag/purse that you said you needed – which is helpful, but how did they know to have it?
The Buff
Every shared house or dorm has one – be it film, music, stage or sport and if you, like me are someone that doesn’t know much about many things you are often the one to be educated. On the plus side you get exposed to a curated and pre-screened list of great new stuff to potentially enjoy. The downside, it feels like taking another module or class at uni with the consuming and learning of the facts being your assignments that you’ll be tested on later.
Split Personality
Already on the slippery slope with attendance, there may be a few new found friends that decide that last night’s party was a little too good and would rather sleep in, despite knowing that skipping class may affect their performance negatively, so feeling like a good friend you agree to sign them in or swipe their ID card (where applicable), meaning they’ll effectively be there for a large percentage of their course, but also get to sleep off their hangovers.
What accolades can you think of for your friends, new and old during the first week or few on campus? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
Mike
