A Fresher's Guide to Commuting to Uni

For the past year I've been taking my little Fiat Punto (Lionel) for a trip down the M27 and M3 every morning to get to university in Winchester. Some days I even took the scenic route through Romsey where I drove past many trees and fields and the occasional cow. What an exciting life I lead. Some people would have you believe that this is 'wrong' and that to get the full student experience you have to be in halls 'living the dream' of having zero money, getting smashed off your face every night and getting off with strangers, waking up covered in every possible fluid, forgetting how they got there in the process. But this isn't the case. I can honestly say that I had a fantastic time being a Fresher without being in Winchester 24/7 and, more importantly, with an extra few pennies in my pocket.

The best thing to do before you even get to university is to find a group on Facebook or create one yourself so you and these other complete strangers can communicate prior to going on the course. In my case I had to make one but it was probably the best decision I made as it's still used now for all sorts of things; general chat, help revising and interesting little stories that pop up. If you manage to join or create one of these it brings you up to a certain level, at least where you can say you recognise someone and maybe know a little bit about them before you go saying anything stupid or ridiculous.

Despite this, when I started university I still felt like I was at a huge disadvantage to everyone else. I'd made the assumption that because they'd been there a whole 10 days more than I had that they would all know each other and I'd be a Billy No Mates on my own in the corner. The problem with assumptions is that they put an instant downer on things, especially if they're as life-altering as university, but I was quickly proven wrong. Nobody knew anyone other than the basic things they'd discovered through a casual bit of Facebook stalking. Sure, they had friends who were in their halls, but in time you'll meet these, at least in passing, and to be honest, it doesn't even matter because you're not the one who needs those people anyway. So the first bit of all important advice I can give you is don't panic, you're not alone.

I would definitely suggest trying to make at least one Freshers event. This was something I couldn't manage due to unforeseen circumstances involving a toilet, but something that I wanted to at least try to make. After all, you only get one first year at uni and you don't want to be known as the one who didn't even make an effort. This is quite difficult to start with because obviously you know no one and you'd feel intrusive asking to sleep on their floor, but these people are no different to you and they want to be your friend as much as you want to be theirs, so in your first few days get talking to people and this problem should be solved easily.

This is where I take the 'real student' head off briefly. You'll find that knowing nobody in the first few weeks does have it's advantages. During lengthy breaks between lectures and seminars don't bother going home, use the free time to keep up with your reading and get ahead of the game. Not only does this have educational advantages it also saves you money. If you're driving in you don't want to make a 50 mile round trip twice in a matter of hours and you definitely don't want to fight with the ever-rising petrol prices because that's a battle you'll certainly lose if you're not careful.

If you've got a part-time job already you should be able to work loose hours around your uni scheduled, so in theory you could still keep your job. I know this sounds obvious but until it starts to interfere with your studies the extra income can really help. It allows you more freedom outside your student loan income, making purchases such as new clothes or games, whatever you like, much more affordable. Just remember that nothing is more important than your studies, the part-time job is not your career, so if it gets too much to handle ditch it. That's what I've done for my second year.

I'm not going to lie, to make friends whilst commuting you need to make a little bit of extra effort, but the benefits are there for all to see. Find some common ground and partake in activities with them. It sounds trivial and mundane but it can go a long way to cementing friendships. For example I would stick around for hours after uni finished to go to the pub to watch football in the evening, only leaving when the last bus to the park and ride comes along, although there's nothing to say that this bus won't ignore you and drive on by as I found out the hard way.

Back to the important thing now, drinking. After a few weeks you should be on good enough terms with at least a few people to crash on their floor without feeling awkward, so go on nights out with them and take advantage of this, after all, there's nothing to say you can't offer them your floor should they fancy a change of scenery and a night out somewhere else. There's no better way of bonding than drunken chunder over someone's shirt or all over the floor. Honestly, this is how 'real students' live. Join them.

Financially speaking, commuting to uni is the best thing ever. And I mean ever. Why would you want to spend upwards of £100 a week  over your hard-earned student loan on rent when you can spend £30 a week on petrol or train tickets. If you want to eat that's another stupid amount of cash you won't need to spend, and I haven't even got to the bills and stupid, stupid landlords you'd have to deal with in your second year. Staying at home saves money and what's not to love about that?

I hope that this helps numb some fears commuters may have. It really isn't that difficult because if you get it right you get the best of both worlds. The best advice I can give you is to keep calm and have fun.

Beep Beep Beep, the Common Sense Alarm is in Overdrive

If there’s one thing that rattles me it’s when people ignore what I call ‘Common Sense Warnings’. Now, this is where something is absurdly stupid and makes every alarm bell in your brain scream in no uncertain terms “do not perform this action.” These alarms can arise for a number of reasons: there is a high danger level, it will humiliate you for the rest of your life, or you could spend eternity married to a goat. Occasionally the result of this is a mixture of these unfortunate happenings and when this does occur who do you blame? Everyone but yourself. Even when it was you who decided to swim in shark infested waters in your favourite seal costume, even when you got the bright idea to mix hang-gliding with target practise (where you were the target), or when it suddenly seemed hilarious to get horrendously drunk only to wake up bent over a wheelie-bin surrounded by horny, Polish tramps. Clearly, all of these were the brainwaves of Tony from down the pub, who strangely enough is always on his third bottle of wine by six o’clock and sat on the same piss-stained stool. With no friends.

Take the example of the Japanese tourist who was having a wonderful family adventure at the Niagara Falls. We all know the stereotype: a camera, shorts that don’t match the rest of their clothing, small glasses and flip-flops, only on this particular day it was raining so she had an umbrella too. The subject was having a glorious time taking in the utterly beautiful surroundings until she wanted a closer look. I’m lucky enough to have experienced the sheer velocity of the Falls and I can vouch that a mixture of it’s powerful, thundering water and the mysterious aura of the mist can draw you closer to the edge of the railings for a glance over, but most people stop at this point because the body slams into Code:Red - Danger Factor. But no, not this tourist. A mere 20 meters down stream from the 51m drop into almost certain death, she decided to climb over the barrier to get a better photo with her Coolpix camera. Within seconds a gust of wind had caught her open umbrella, dragging her into the rushing river that drops 600,000 gallons of water over the Falls a second. The result was more Mary Droppings than Mary Poppins. Needless to say she didn’t float gracefully into the white water rapids below.

Somalian Pirates have been in the news a lot over the past few years and not because they are pleasant individuals who plan parties for the disabled and buy orphanages to transform into PlayZone’s. Generally speaking they are in the headlines because they have ambushed cargo ships and painted the walls with blood. Obviously this is a great advert for Somalian tourism because so many middle class nitwits and retirees sail into pirate territory with the attitude that it would never happen to them, that nobody could possibly want to take their luxury yacht by force and lock two delightfully British people who speak with their wallets in a tiny cell and starve them. It goes without saying that this isn’t the case as delightfully British couple and middle class retired nitwits who speak with their wallets Paul and Rachel Chandler discovered the hard way - by having their luxury yacht taken by force and then by being locked in a tiny cell and starved for over a year. Luckily they lived to tell the tale and were eventually released but I would love to know whose idea it was to sail through such dangerous waters, or even hear a snippet of their conversation: “Oh darling, Somalia sounds tropical! Let’s cruise past there.” If you really want to sail to the Seychelles, go round the long way, it’s much safer. And make sure you have your common sense alarm turned on whilst planning said trip.

The host of the popular NBC show To Catch a Predator, Chris Hansen, lives by the hidden camera so it was only apt that his marriage died by the hidden camera. In the show (in which Hansen anchors) paedophiles are lured to the house of an actor who portrays a young teenager lurking on seedy internet chat-rooms acting as a bait for the sex-starved, moustachioed sex offenders with colonies of ants living under their armpits. They arrive at a decoy house where they are greeted by the ‘child’ (who looks over 20, let alone 14) who welcomes them to their home and offers them a drink. Hansen then appears with his famous line “would you like to take a seat?” By this point the offender must be feeling immortal at the thought of a threesome, until it’s revealed to them that this is in fact an undercover sting operation and the moment they leave the house they will be arrested. 

Similar to the offenders, Hansen has been caught red-handed on hidden cameras cheating on his wife with someone 21 years younger than him. Which, admittedly would be a lot more awful if he wasn’t 51. Regardless of this, Hansen is a man very much in the public eye so with that in mind he should be considering more secluded locations than hotels and restaurants to conduct his affairs in. Add to the mixture that he is the host of a hidden camera show and he should be all the more careful because there’s bound to be someone wanting to turn the tables on him. There are currently unconfirmed reports that he asked his secret date if she would like to take a seat... On his face.

Our final subject for examination is the victim of a Polar Bear attack victim Horatio Chapple, or rather the British Schools Exploring Society (BSES), who organised the trip to the Arctic Circle when it was common knowledge that the white bundles of fluff were starving as Global Warming has left them with less seals to scoff. Chapple’s tent was ripped into by the hungry teddy bear as he was sleeping, leaving him in pieces and four of his school friends injured as they tried to fend off the bear. As tragic as this is, there is nobody to blame but BSES who ignored the widely used safety measure of creating a look out post to spot danger. Coming from a country that is as health and safety conscious as Britain and with a name that announces their Britishness, surely BSES would have had other measures in place in case a look out point could not be established. Surely they would have working rifles and flares. Apparently not. The rifle didn’t work instantly and had to be cocked and fiddled with a few times and the flare gun was useless, not even emitting so much as a spark.

Five public school boys are hardly cage fighter material so they didn’t stand a chance against a billion tonne bear hunting a Big Mac. Granted, Horatio and his fellow students are much more used to bumping into wild Deer grazing on their lavish estates than the monstrous children’s toys with razor sharp teeth, but if anything this shows that no matter where you go for an education, nowhere can teach you how to be bear-proof.

So the moral here is very clear: If something sounds stupid, it probably is and no, you probably shouldn’t do it. However, if you can live with stories about you eating soggy biscuits or weeing on electric fences circling around your current set of friends and your future friends, oh and not to mention your family and their families, then go right ahead. You don’t have to take my advice.