The time of your life?

When Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes belted out The Time of My Life, they may have been singing about love, rather than university, but the sentiment is an apt one. When you’re at school, your parents tell you to enjoy it; when you’re nervous about starting college, everyone tells you it will be great; when you apply for university, you don’t need anyone to tell you: it’s going to be the best few short years of your entire life.

No pressure, then. Wide-eyed and nervous freshers will mix with those ones who prowl about with confidence, although inside they are probably quaking in their fresher sized boots. But the ‘freshers' fortnight’, filled with friend-making opportunities, lie-ins and society reps who pester you with their clipboard, does in fact only last the fortnight. After that, it can feel like you’re on your own and it’s down to you to make the fun happen.

Well, it kind of is. The saying of ‘you get what you put in’ is actually a tried and tested fact. But sometimes, you can put everything you can find into the uni pot of fun and it’s still just not quite…the time of your life. Damn you, Bill and Jen, you set the stakes too high. Newsflash: perfect usually isn’t possible. If you don’t look like you’ve slept with a coat-hanger in your mouth every day, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed and are destined to be miserable for the rest of your life (uni life, that is). Take a look around you; everyone else is probably thinking the same thing as they sit on their single bed in their alien rooms, reminiscing about home life or wanting one of those well-loved home-cooked dinners.

Becca, 22 has just graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design. “In my first year, I went home every weekend. I just wanted to get away from halls! From dirty dishes in the kitchen to sharing four toilets between 20 students, male and female, it was horrible. We had four showers to share with plugs which were blocked up with hair, and some doors didn’t even lock so anyone could come in when you’re starkers!”

Halls is the problem for a lot of people; for me it was actually the better part as I must have been a saint in a previous life, living with people who immediately became my best friends. It was the second year that took its toll, as six of us moved in together and slowly things went a little pear shaped. As one housemate left, a stranger moved in and he wasn’t quite ideal housemate material. Might have been good for Big Brother, though. As he left us to pay his rent, clean his mess and listen to his abominable singing, we began to wonder what happened to that saintly previous life and why we were now being punished.