Listen up freshers. Make the most of your time, because this is as good as it gets. The first year at university, as it turns out, is the best one. Its all downhill from there. Never again will you have mad flat parties with everyone in your block. Never again will you live around a load of students, your neighbours for the remainder of uni will contain a family – they don’t appreciate rowdy pre drinks.

First of all, it won’t ever be as exciting as that first mad week of freshers. The night after night of going out is a fond memory as you soon realise that you actually have to do work in the remaining years of your degree. Everyone who lives around you in first year is spread out in different houses for the next year, trying to organise a group pre drinks will be a logistical nightmare, in the end you give up and just agree to see each other when you’re out, which just isn’t the same.

After successfully scraping through first year, you actually have to go to your lectures and pay attention because the work becomes much harder, and, well, this is your degree. There’s no more skipping 9am lectures, dodging seminar work, or doing the bare minimum. The amount of time spent in the library increases, and the amount of time spent on having a social life, sadly, decreases.

When you live in a house for the first time, you realise that university halls were actually really easy. There were no bills to sort out between everyone, no working out the bin rota, and the university cleaners made your life much easier. Its not until you no longer have these “luxuries” that you realise how easy first year was.

Don’t get me wrong, university is still great, despite the increase in work. You still have mad nights out, and its still great fun living in a student house, but nothing will beat that fresher feeling.