With freshers’ week all over and done with for some people, it is a time in which many first years begin to imagine what their new best friends will be like. But as much as university is a time for personal flourishing and development, finding your niche and exploring who you are as a person, it’s also a time in which you’ll encounter almost comically distinct stereotypes and cliques. That’s why Unifresher have put together this list of the types of people you might well encounter – or, equally likely, become – at uni this month. You can also find out what stereotype you are by what uni you go to!
1. The hermit
This person may well be pretty active and social in the kitchen for the first few nights of uni, but they’ll gradually slip away to their room more and more frequently until one night, a couple of months in, one of you will say ‘hang on, we haven’t seen Alex in weeks!’ And you’ll all suddenly realise that, yes, this person has somehow managed to slip off of everyone’s radar and carve out an existence for themselves where they spend all day in their rooms and slip to lectures, undetected, never to be seen by anyone for the rest of your time at university. And who knows what they’re doing in there all day.
2. The newly-converted druggie
This will be the posh kid who was straight-edge up until they pop their first pill within a week of coming to uni, and from that point they’ll be hooked. You’ll see them at every single house night from then on, pupils dilated and jaw a-chatter as they tell you ‘how good it is to see you again, man!’ over and over again. These kids are normally very nice people who have just had their eyes opened to a chemical world they’d never before experienced, but when pretty much only talk about drugs for two whole terms you can be forgiven for avoiding them when you see them in the corridor.
3. The authority figure
Even though you’ll be living with loads of, mainly, 18-21-year-olds in your halls, you’ll still run into the odd fresher who will always take on the finger-wagging, head-shaking role of authority figure whenever a prank goes a little too far or someone’s feelings get a little bit hurt. Obviously it’s good to have everybody operating under standard moral codes in your halls, but this person is often the sanctimonious one who will come and complain about the noise in the kitchen keeping them awake at 9pm. Old before their time, they are not to be trifled with – don’t put it past them to ‘tell on you’ to the warden!
4. The sports nut
These people will be largely apparent pretty much from the first night out. They’ll be the ones leading the inevitable chants encouraging people to DOWN THEIR BEVERAGES!! and raucous singalongs on the walk down to the club, and they’ll often congregate in groups and spend much of the night posing for photos. Yes, the sporty lot in your hall will be easy to spot, and they’re often great lad and lasses – the only problem is that they definitely think of themselves as being lads and lasses, and you’ll get all the negative aspects of those, too. Just make sure you blend in if you dare to go to sport night without being one of the team!
5. The gap year kid
The kids who have taken a gap year before heading off to uni will be identifiable by a number of factors. Their funkily-patterned clothing in all colours of the rainbow, the veritable cornucopia of bracelets and necklaces they’ll have adorned their wrists, ankles and necks with, their slightly more drawn out speech and spaced-out look, and more generally the fact that they’ll talk about their gap year all the bloody time. Much like the newly-converted druggies, these are often lovely people, but they often conform to their stereotypes so closely that they can be annoying to be around for too long.
6. The hipster
With their top-knot and their flannel shirts, their constant stream of rollies on the go and their recondite favourite drink choices, it’ll be incredibly easy to spot the hipsters around you when you head to uni. Their finely-groomed beards and expensive shoes will give them away in an instant, and they’ll probably be doing a degree in philosophy or English, or at least something vaguely abstract and that allows for pretentious discussion. The hipster is arguably becoming a dying breed in recent years, but that’s not to say you won’t run into a load of them from the second you arrive at your halls.
7. The newly-liberated drinker
For whatever reason there will be a lot of people coming to uni without ever having experienced the joys and miseries brought on by drinking alcohol. They will quickly become apparent on the first night out as they have no idea of how much to drink of any given tipple, often consuming enormous amounts of straight spirits because they haven’t yet associated a memory of vomiting to the taste of it yet. These kids will be getting absolutely wrecked every night until they figure out how much they can handle, and once the novelty of drinking and all the dutch courage that comes with it wears off. It’s worth watching them consume their own body weight in tequila until this happens, though.
8. The party animal
These people will be raring to go and get predrinking almost the second that their parents have tearfully departed after dropping them off, and they won’t stop all year, let alone all freshers’ week. While you’ll be envious of the boundless energy and enthusiasm they seem to have for going out so often, you’ll be less so once their grades start to plummet and they turn up hungover for your end-of-year exams. Nonetheless, these people are always guaranteed fun on a night out, so while it’s important not to become like them, they’re great to buddy up with.
9. The Londoner
Whichever uni you go to is bound to have a plethora of freshers trawling there from the capital, and boy will you know about it. Every aspect of your new home will be compared to the big city, from drinks prices, to clothes, to the people, to more abstract and irritating factors like its ‘vibe’ or its ‘niche.’ These people will complain about many aspects of London but also betray a fanatical loyalty to it, and no amount of justification for any distaste you may have for the city will sway them. They’ll also perplexingly, keep saying that they miss the tube.
10. The rich kid
Many of the people you’ll meet at your uni will come from unimaginably rich backgrounds, speaking of alien concepts like croquet tournaments and family mansions in Buenos Aires where they spent their holidays. Again, that’s no reason whatsoever to judge people, but they do also tend to congregate in groups, splashing the cash on untold rounds of drinks on nights out and generally serving to underline to you how small your student loan actually is in ‘real world’ money. Not to worry, just buddy up with one of them and pray for the invite to that mansion!
11. The revolutionary
While it’s great to be passionate and to act on the causes you care about, trying to make a difference, it can be a little bit tiring for everyone else if they try to get you to come along with them to seemingly every single protest on every single issue going on in your uni city. These activists in the making will have a firmly-held stance on every conceivable topic of debate, and they’ll try and draw you out into a heated discussion about these issues whenever possible.
