Not only does Cambridge lack an actual Freshers' Week (you  might get five days if you're lucky), but it also has some pretty unconventional traditions. Where else would you spot a shark, have to narrowly avoid an engagement and listen to the Lion King on a night out, all in the same place? But you won't be the only one wondering what on earth is going on: here's Violet's Freshers' Week Bingo so you can be reassured you're definitely not alone.  

5am fire drill 

There’s nothing positive about being turfed out of bed at silly o’clock in the morning, but seeing your peers in their PJs is a surprisingly good icebreaker, and you can all moan about the injustice of it all as you spend the next half an hour trying to avoid hypothermia.  

Shark spotting

‘Sharking’ is the affectionate term for non-freshers chatting up their juniors with only one thing in mind. You can spot them a mile off (at the very least, they will have a less-than-wholesome twinkle in their eye) and are advised to stay away. 

Academic inadequacy feels

At Cambridge there are lots of keen beans who start staying in the library till midnight in Freshers' Week, putting your perfectly acceptable work ethic to shame, and lots of supervisors who will only have the courtesy to veil their criticisms in the thinnest of ways. But panic not. Your work is good enough, so don't let them get you down.

Premature engagements

Do not, under any circumstances, get college engaged in Freshers' Week. By the time marriage formal comes around, you will most likely have divorced on grounds of irreconcilable differences, or will be in an actual relationship with them, so wait a little longer and do it right first time. 

College incest 

TBH, so long as whatever you get up to with your achingly hot and slightly older college parent is consensual and protected, then all is good. You’re not actually related, after all. 

Optimistic alcohol tolerance

Every year, someone takes on far more booze than they can handle and becomes an instant college BNOC for all the wrong reasons. Don’t be that person. 

Your first deadline 

Some supervisors hand out the first pieces of work less than 48 hours after you have bid farewell to your parents. Only start it on Thursday, the day that term officially starts. You’ve got all year to worry about work, but there’s only one Freshers' Week. 

Kill-joy porters

What is that I hear? Pre-drinks during Freshers week? Are you having a LAUGH? If it looks like you might be having even the slightest bit of fun past sundown, don’t be surprised if the night-porter pays you a visit. But don’t worry, you’ll soon learn how to pre more inconspicuously. 

Your new BFFL 

At a crowded college social, the matriculation formal or the family meal, you overhear a joke, a comment or a political viewpoint that makes you smile, and as you meet the eyes of whoever said it, you realise that this is the BFFL you’ve been searching for. It’s a special moment. Treasure it.

Forgetting your life back home exists

Freshers' Week is so non-stop that in between academic meetings and organised socials and hitting the town you might forget to make contact with your loved ones back home. Try and drop them a text when you can, just to let them know you are surviving independent life just fine. 

Your first trip to the Cambridge clubs

You never forget the first time that you hear the infamous Pirates of the Caribbean remix drop in a Cambridge club, and the simultaneous surge of cringing, confusion and wondering why you didn’t choose Bristol after all (with proper clubs that play actual music there). There are no other places on earth like Life and Cindies, and Freshers' Week will be the start of a long-term love affair with Cambridge’s own unique brand of student nights.

Signing up to every society at the Freshers' Fair

The people who man these stalls drive a hard bargain. You might never intend on playing competitive tiddlywinks or trying your hand at quidditch, but you can be sure as anything that you’ll be signing up to their mailing lists just to make them go away. Seriously though, go ahead and sign up to everything that catches your eye at the Freshers' Fair, and afterwards, think carefully about actually taking part in a couple of the societies that are now starting to clog up your mailbox.

I hope you scored a full house (although blessed art thou if you escaped a 5am fire drill), but more importantly, I hope you had a great Freshers' Week, and that it's got you hyped for the year ahead. It's going to be a good one