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New students have expectations of Freshers’ week as a week of heavy drinking and partying; it has gained this reputation through representations, shared stories, portrayals, and reports. Freshers’ week is also, however, the week, or fortnight, in which students arrive at university, move into their accommodation, establish social bonds, and begin to explore their new campus and city/town. As stated in Chapter One, many universities are now rebranding Freshers’ week as Welcome Week in an attempt to move away from negative portrayals and associations with Freshers’ week, but colloquially amongst students Freshers’ week is still in use. Quigg et al define Freshers’ week as the period at university when new students are welcomed to the campus and local community, and ‘usually includes invitations to events held in bars and nightclubs’ such as student pub crawls (2013: 2925). This establishes an expectation, and a social norm, which is extended throughout term time as student nights and events run by students unions, commercial organisations, or a mixture of both, ‘can play a major role in a student’s university life’ (Quigg et al, 2013: 2925). This section analyses the participants’ perceptions of this intensive start to university life and the common themes that emerged.

Alongside the negative media depictions of student drinking in Freshers’ week, studies have found that family, friends and previous educational experience are influential in forming expectations of university (see e.g. Ailes et al, 2015; Maunder et al, 2013; Pancer et al, 2000). It was common amongst my participants to make reference to their families, friends and particularly siblings as influencing factors and as Ailes et al found, in the American college context, ‘sources, which included peers, family, media, and teachers, played a significant role in influencing first-year students’ expectations’ and that, according to their participants, family and media were two of the greatest factors helping to form perceptions of college (2015: 6). First year Jen, felt nervous about attending university and Freshers’ week in particular as her sister had guided her expectations:

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Jen: Yeah, so I was really nervous because I came to university, the thing I was most worried out of the whole thing of university was about drinking. I was telling you about my sister earlier and she told me before I went to university that I had to drink coz she was like “It’s the only way you can make friends during Freshers’”, like she was just telling me there was no other option so that was really scary

Jen’s expectation of Freshers’ week and friendship formation at university has been formed through her older sister who, as an experienced student, worried that Jen would struggle to make friends if she did not partake in Freshers’ week drinking. As is referenced above, we learn from the cultural knowledge and experience of family and friends (see Bourdieu, 1984, Shutz and Luckman, 1973) and in this case it led Jen to anticipate university as ‘scary’ and worry that she would struggle to make friends if she did not drink alcohol. However, Jen sought out information from others to reassure her and when she arrived at university her fears were lessened:

Jen: Yeah, but then I had spoken to other people that were like “no you don’t need to drink, it’s fine” […] then in Freshers’ week yeah it was ok actually, like so in the evenings when the rest of our flat would all be liked crammed into the kitchen playing drinking games and stuff and the rest of us didn’t really want to do that, we always found alternative things to do together. So like on the first night everyone went out to one of the flats near us, and they were having like a big party with everyone, and the three of us stayed in and watched Little Mermaid. But I think we only watched a little bit of it and then we got persuaded to go and say hi and meet other people. So then we did go and meet other people but we just didn’t drink. And then for the rest of the week when people were playing the drinking games and stuff we’d just sit out in the corridor playing. I brought some Disney trivia cards with me, so we just played those instead which was a lot more fun. But yeah, I think I was very fortunate that I had other people in my flat that didn’t drink, if it weren’t for those two I’m not sure how that week would

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have been. I think it would have been a lot scarier and less enjoyable. But yeah because I was living with two others that didn’t drink I just didn’t really feel any pressure to drink

What this highlights is that, although family and friends are an influencing factor, students have the capacity and drive to make up their own minds and through their own experiences they begin to increase their own cultural knowledge. However, although Jen was happy to find alternative things to do there is a clear prioritisation of drinking and partying by her flatmates and a divide between those who did and those who did not drink alcohol. There is also an element of rejecting drinking games, seen as ‘adult’, for a Disney game which could potentially be seen as infantilising or immature. A number of other participants have also noted joining peers in drinking games (see e.g. Alfonso & Deschenes, 2013; Borsari et al, 2007; Fairlie et al, 2015; Labhart et al, 2013; Wells et al, 2009; Zamboanga et al, 2010; Zamboanga et al, 2014) whilst not drinking, and so even though they are involved they are side-lined in a game which privileges drinkers. This is further discussed in Chapter Five in relation to friendship practices.

Whilst drinking games and ‘alternatives’ emerge from a desire to meet and bond with peers, new students are increasingly using social media to (virtually) meet other new students before they arrive at university. This can give them a sense of what their peers are expecting and a feeling of ‘knowing’ someone before they arrive. For example the thread from the SFFG with pre-university students, when I asked ‘what are you expecting from university socially?’, was as follows:

Susan: The stereotypical Freshers’ week is obviously meeting people and creating a social life centred around partying. However, there are also so-called “coffee crawls” and group visits to other parts of Scotland and within [my university city], which sound much more like my kind of socialising for Freshers’ and in general.

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Luke: I imagine it to be heavily drinking focused during fresher’s but with other events thrown in so that if you don’t drink/aren’t that into that kind of thing you can still meet people. After that I imagine it can be however you want it to be; plenty of opportunity but no pressure to be social.

Interviewer: So have you both been sent or seen information from [your chosen universities] about what’s happening in Freshers’ week then? When I started uni most of it came in the post but are there now Facebook pages etc. that keep you informed instead?

Susan: I’ve been sent two booklets in the post and there is supposedly a website but it hardly works and is really difficult to navigate. Some things have event pages on Facebook I think

Luke: I’m in more FB groups that I can count and several group chats. Some general Freshers’ stuff is online but I’ll get a timetable once I get there of all the details

Interviewer: so do you feel like you will already know a few people/faces when you arrive from being in FB groups/group chats then? Is that reassuring?

Luke: Yes I think I should recognise a few people. I think it will definitely help me to settle in. Even if I don’t stay friends with them it will be somebody to speak to on the first day.

Rosie: [my university] have sent me a few things and from speaking to my friends the wristband that [they] offer to get into Freshers’ events is the cheapest? I’m expecting most people to be a little awkward and nervous because we’re all in the same boat but I reckon by the end of the first week friendships and groups will start forming like they do when you start any new school

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Charlotte: Everyone always says that it’s always just wild nights out at [my university] but I’ve been talking to people in my accommodation and I don’t think that’s completely true. Sure there are definitely lots of massive events you can go to but there are also loads of alternatives which plenty of people do as well

Interviewer: do you have a FB group for your accommodation then? Is it good to have spoken to a few people before you arrive?

Charlotte: Yeah we do and I think it’s made me more confident that I’ll be able to make friends with people which is good but I find it easier to talk to new people in person so I feel a bit awkward at times

The availability of online spaces where new/prospective students can talk to a number of people associated with university (current students, other new/prospective students, staff, alumni and so on) provided these participants with an increased sense of confidence and comfort. It is common for there to be specific Freshers’ Facebook pages for each new academic year and in this way students can get to know who is on their course or in their accommodation, set up further Facebook groups or pages, and ask questions such as if there are others who are not interested in going out and drinking meaning that they can arrange to attend the ‘alternative’ events or to meet up themselves outside of UDC. It seems that the use of social media in these ways is fostering a sense of community amongst students and so should be encouraged. For Charlotte it also dispelled a myth about her university’s reputation as others confirmed there were alternatives to ‘wild nights out’. Vickery recognises that ‘communities – both virtual and offline – can transcend the boundaries of place’ and create a sense of belonging through shared experience, discourse, cultural text etc. (2010: 185). These students share the experience of studying to get into university, applying and preparing to attend university and Briggs et al suggest that ‘for students, the move to university is a personal investment of the cultural capital accrued through school and college education’ (2012: 3). These online spaces, which generally seem to be positioned around university specific Facebook pages, societies, and

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college/accommodation groups, therefore foster a sense of community, and indeed expectations, before students start university and can extend it once they have arrived. Stephenson-Abetz and Holman, in their study of college students use of Facebook in the transition to college, found that their participants felt a need to connect with both their old and new communities and Facebook provided this (2012: 181). They found that ‘overwhelmingly, students loved the ease with which they could connect and communicate with new people on Facebook’ and the ability to talk casually to peers ‘all contributed to their sense of community in the early days of college’ (Stephenson-Abetz and Holman, 2012: 187-188) (see also Barnes, 2017). Whilst online spaces are clearly being used in various ways to engage with students this could be furthered to discuss their expectations and wants, as recommended above, and potentially disseminate information in a format that is familiar and attractive to them. For Rosie, Luke and Susan, who worried about and experienced homesickness, Facebook can also provide a link to home with connections with old friends, family and reminders of ‘good memories’ (see Stephenson-Abetz and Holman, 2012). There is, once again, clearly a concern with friendship, old and new, and what is also clear from this conversation with the friendship group is that Freshers’ week, for them, was all about meeting people. This came with an expectation that, although universities offer ‘loads of alternatives’, drinking would be the principal form of socialising organised by universities and attended by students; the word ‘alternative’ is indicative of this in itself.

Collette, a postgraduate student who completed her university ‘career’ at the same institution has had varied experience of Freshers’ week: as an undergraduate and postgraduate student, as a Freshers’ Rep, and as a staff member. She stated that there have been changes in how Freshers’ week is run but the image of Freshers’ week still centres on big night’s out, and there is still a cultural hang-up that for students the first taste of independence ‘has to be the taste of alcohol’:

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Interviewer: So have you seen a change in how Freshers’ week happens over your time here?

Collette: Oh definitely, yeah. I was saying before, nowadays if you’re a Freshers’ Rep and you had students who didn’t want to drink, for one thing I don’t think you could say ‘right well we’re all going out drinking with the fun lot so you can go find the alternatives by yourself’ I think someone would go along with the other group, and to be honest now I even think they’d try and encourage the whole group to go along and try the alternative event. That said I’ve done the big night’s out a few times, I did work it last year as one of the people who ticks off the groups as they come in and I think, certainly in [my university], the image I have of sort of Freshers’ week in particular is the big night out because it’s the big bar crawl around the town. And that was still, the year before when I was working it there was still the girl who got herself so drunk that she curls up in the corner in the girl’s toilets and you have to get security to come and help out. So certainly there’s still lots of heavy drinking that goes on and still I think that thing that there’s always been of the ones who haven’t had a big night out before, either because that’s not the group of friends they’ve had at home or because home doesn’t have anywhere where you can go and drink like that, I think it’s still a little bit of a shock to the system, well it probably is a bit of a shock to the system suddenly putting that much alcohol in your body. And I think it’s more responsible now, there’s far more emphasis on making people like the Freshers’ Reps aware that it can’t all just be all about drinking. And even if your group of Freshers want to go off and do that, say you’ve somehow hit, as it were, the jackpot and your group want to go out drinking, actually there’s a responsibility there to make sure that they’re safe and looked after while that’s going on. Whereas I think there was, I can remember our Freshers’ Reps were just reps because they wanted to have a week of getting pissed basically. There were some nights when they were more drunk than we were so I think that whole thing of it has changed quite a bit. Partly as well there’s always the stories, press stories around Freshers’ week

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of ‘oh this student’s got so drunk they’ve done this’ or ‘this student’s go so drunk that they’ve done that’ and I think universities themselves are a bit more aware of the reputational issues that can come with it. So I think obviously their first priority is going to be the students and making sure that they’re safe, but I think there’s also a slight issue of we also don’t want to be the one university that has this happen in Freshers’ week.

Interviewer: Yeah, it’s strange isn’t it that difference between wanting to give people their first taste of independence but also recognising that they can be a bit vulnerable.

Collette: And I think that idea as well that your first taste of proper independence has to be the taste of alcohol, it’s an odd cultural hangup in some ways. Another thing as well is as much as Freshers’ week’s become better run, better organised that, and it’s harder to look at, but stuff like the initiation ceremony’s for say the rugby clubs which obviously aren’t formalised in the same way because they’re done on the club level and so I know they’re banned in quite a lot of places but obviously you can ban them and they still go on in a slightly different guise so that’s an odd bit that I don’t know much about.

This conversation is suggestive of the transitions and ‘rites of passage’ (see e.g. Macneela & Bredin, 2010; Tutenges & Sandberg, 2013) students are expected to go through at university; an example of the ‘freedoms’ students are allowed in time away from being studious and in preparing to become a ‘productive citizen’. In the Foucauldian sense the university is a disciplinary institution which uses disciplinary technology to forge a ‘docile body that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (Foucault, 1975: 198). Rabinow suggests that this is ‘done in several ways: through drills and training of the body, through standardization of actions over time, and through the control of space. Discipline proceeds from an organization of individuals in space, and it requires a specific enclosure of space’, and that disciplinary technologies preceded modern capitalism (1987: 17-18). I argue that students are ‘allowed’ this period of ‘freedom’ in a space that is controlled, and where to a certain extent they are monitored (see Chapter Six for an in-depth discussion of the implications of this). However,

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considering Collette’s response it seems that students are expected to participate in such freedoms relating to alcohol in an ‘odd cultural hang-up’, and university is marketed as a period of fun alongside hard-work. Piacentini and Banister state that amongst their participants there