You’ve just arrived at university, it’s Freshers’ Week and there’s one night everyone is talking about: Crisis. It’s normally every Wednesday and you’ll come to know it as both a great night out and the place where all the sports teams hold their socials, but tonight is a special freshers-only event. The dress code? Back to school. So with your blouse tucked in and your tie loosely hung around your neck, you set off to one of Nottingham’s best known venues: Rock City.
The tone is set as soon as you walk through the door – hundreds of newly liberated teenagers clutching jägerbombs are jumping up and down to the beat. The music is great, your new friends are just as drunk as you: university is everything you hoped for. Until you reach for your bag to buy a drink and realise everything you own has gone.
In a room the size of Rock City’s basement, filled with hundreds of inebriated freshers and not enough air to breathe, the chances of finding everything you’ve lost are incredibly slim. On my first university night out, I lost almost everything I took and spent the rest of the week known as ‘that girl who lost everything at Crisis’.
Here are my top five tips to help you avoid the same fate:
1. Never take a clutch bag to a club
It might look fancy but chances are the button won’t close properly and the contents will spill all over the floor. You don’t want your new friends to have to scour the dance floor with you, do you? Trust me, it’s embarrassing.
2. Don’t take a purse
It might seem like the easier option but if you lose it, you lose everything– ID and uni card included. To some of you, this might seem like common sense. However, if you’re like me and lack even an ounce of that skill, you’ll be thinking more about heading to pre-drinks than the practicality of what you’ve got with you. It seems fine until you realise you can’t use the money on your card to buy lunch the next day.
3. Have your key on a lanyard and wear it
It might not be the most attractive accessory for your outfit but you can keep checking you still have it with you. Paying £20 for a new key makes even the cheapest of nights very expensive.
4. During nights out, many people lose their room key
When you ring the warden to let you into your room, he probably has at least ten other people to see. Make sure you have someone to wait with you because campus can be terrifying when it’s dark and you’re alone. (Especially after the safety talk they give you in week one!)
5. Keep a stash of emergency money in your room. (Well hidden, of course)
If you lose your bank card and have to wait for another to be issued, you aren’t left penniless and don’t have to miss out on a night of fun.
But above all, enjoy yourself. Crisis is one of our university’s best nights out and offers a huge variety of music. The drinks are fairly cheap too! It’s definitely a night to remember so make sure you remember it for what you gained, not what you lost.
Tamsin Parnell
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Photo Credits: Nikos Koutoulas via Flickr and NoHoDamon via Flickr
