Freshers in halls as a postgrad: better the second time around?

A candid reflection on the differences between the Freshers experience as a postgraduate and as an undergraduate.

Artwork by Tanisha Jha

Ask anyone what they think of when they hear the words “Freshers’ Week”, and they’ll usually picture large groups of intoxicated 18-year-olds, alcohol-fuelled raves, hazing and enough vomiting and hangovers to last a few years. Indeed, it is no wonder why UCL has renamed the opening period of its term “Welcome Week”. The term “Freshers’ Week” is charged with connotations of the kind of immaturity and irresponsibility characteristic of American fraternity houses; not quite “Animal House”, but certainly in that direction.

It’s definitely not something most would associate with postgraduate students who have been through university once already, reached their early-to-mid twenties, and chosen to continue studying because they enjoy their subject and take responsibility for their work. Understandably, Freshers’ Week is most commonly associated with undergraduates moving away from home and into the adult world for the first time, and with the sense of adventure and novelty which usually accompanies this.

However, the majority of students at UCL are postgraduates, many of whom did not study at UCL at undergraduate level. Moreover, with the pandemic making further study preferable to job hunting for many who did not originally plan to stay in university, a postgraduate’s perspective on Freshers’ Week has never been more relevant. Comparing the experience of incoming undergraduates and postgraduates reveals a lot about what really makes Freshers, and the university experience more generally, enjoyable.

Undergraduate freshers are in a unique position. It’s the first time most of them have lived away from their parents, the first time they’ve had to manage their lives on their own, and for many, the first time they’ve moved to a new city or town. For international students, it’s also often the first time they have lived in the UK, and cultural differences between the UK and their own countries can make the task of moving to London an even greater step into the unfamiliar. For undergrads, Freshers is the start of a very stimulating but vulnerable stage of transition from being a teenager to becoming a young adult.

Being a postgrad is different. You’ve already been through university once before. The prospect of moving away from your parents, staying up late drinking and chatting, going to parties and clubs, joining societies for all your niche interests and generally enjoying the freedom and independence of adult life has lost its novelty. This doesn’t mean it’s not fun, but it does make it less exciting than the first time around when you’re taking your first step into the adult world. But it is also less daunting. That fear you felt at leaving your hometown on a long-term basis for the first time? Gone. That anxiety you used to get about not seeing your parents and your home friends? Not there. Pressure to impress a lot people you’ve only just met and will probably spend barely any time with in future? Imagine that.

Then there’s the academic side of things. As an undergrad fresher, you have to deal with the jump from schoolwork to being given endless lists of books which you could never possibly hope to finish and then told to write a piece of work that is the same length as, or longer than, anything you wrote at school in the space of a week or two. All this while still recovering from Freshers’ Flu and, well, Freshers itself.

By contrast, postgraduate study is a broad church, but on the whole, the gap between school and your final year of undergraduate study is wider than the gap between undergraduate finals and most postgraduate degrees. By the time you’ve finished undergrad, you already know how to carry out research by yourself, how to organise your time independently, and how to take unmanageably long reading lists, cut them down to a feasible load, and work through it by yourself. What’s more, postgrad is also where you get to focus more on the areas which you are personally interested in, and since more of your course will rely on independent work, you have more control over how you spend your time.

Nonetheless, if being a postgraduate makes life easier academically and emotionally, moving to a new university for postgrad study still comes with its own set of challenges, particularly social ones. The downside of starting postgrad is that nearly all of the structures designed to help people move to university in a new city, from the officially organised socials to UCL’s housing policy, are intended for undergraduate freshers; UCL does not offer accommodation for postgraduate students from the UK. SpareRoom is the most viable option for a lot of people, and with that comes the uncertainty of judging a group of housemates by an online profile, signing a contract and then hoping that you end up getting on with the people you live with.

Another option is to apply for Intercollegiate Halls, which would house you in a block with other students, reasonably close to the Bloomsbury Campus. However, from an incoming postgraduate’s perspective, the issue with this is that even though the Halls are advertised as mixed undergraduate and postgraduate accommodation, one glance at the Facebook page and Messenger group chat is all you need to work out that they are predominantly inhabited by undergraduate freshers. This can be anxiety-inducing, because you probably went through undergrad with friends from your own year who were interested in the same things as you at the same time as you.

They would have undergone the transition from fun-loving fresher to responsible Finalist at the same time as you, with all the changing habits along the way. Now you face a maturity gap between yourself and an atmosphere dominated by people four years younger than you who, though perfectly nice people, are at a different stage of life from yours and will be interested in different things. The idea of doing Freshers again seems to stand at odds with everything you’ve learnt about what it means to be a postgrad. Freshers is for 18-year-olds moving away from their parents for the first time, being adults for the first time, and making all the mistakes it takes to get used to adult life for the first time. “Postgraduate Fresher” feels like an oxymoron; postgrads are mature, they know how to handle themselves, they take responsibility for their lives, and they put work before getting drunk and going to parties, right?  

When faced with a contrast like this, it’s useful to remember how people make friends and build their lifestyles at undergraduate level in the first place. Whilst it will come as no surprise to note that undergrads make friends through their halls of residence, it is important to realise that this basic pattern of people making friends with others they live with does not go away as people get older, and that the same is true for postgraduate students. You could have a more mature lifestyle and prioritise work, living in a flat exclusively with other postgrads and not going out to drink much. Or you could still drink, go to parties, turn up to the first few Zoom seminars hungover, and do all the fun things associated with Freshers, socialising with first-year undergrads, Master’s students, and people in all the years in between in a hall of residence.

Simply put, it is your living circumstances, not your year, that determine your lifestyle and who you will be friends with, and it is better to base your choices on your own life situation than on the perceived norm for someone your age. If you have already settled comfortably in London and you have a fun social life, then it would make sense to privately rent a flat with friends your own age who might have grad jobs. Conversely, if you do not know anyone in London yet and are anxious to settle in the city, it might be wiser to apply for halls accommodation so that you can get to know a broader range of people and decide who to live with after your first year that way.

There comes a point where the undergraduate-postgraduate dichotomy, ultimately based on the arbitrary quality of age, means very little compared to the contrasting life circumstances of different students. A 22-year-old Master’s student moving to London with no friends there already is in a much more similar position to many 18-year-old freshers than to a 19-year-old in second year who already knows enough people to live outside halls without having to depend on university structures for social contact.

Ultimately, the postgrad experience of Freshers depends entirely on where you live, who you live with and what you want. If you’re looking to continue living your pre-existing life in London while embarking on a new degree, this is reasonable, and there is no reason not to do this if you are in a position to. But if you want to move to a new place, meet new people and build a new life, there is nothing stopping you from doing this either.

You can enjoy all the usual aspects of Freshers, without the anxieties and insecurities your 18-year-old self might have had. Freshers may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think of postgraduate study, but it has its place in helping you settle in a new city, and can still benefit new students, regardless of age. In fact, given the emotional stability that comes with being older, who says it can’t be more enjoyable the second time around?