Advice

Fresher’s Checklist: What to do in Notts

With the 2018/19 academic year incoming, the city of Nottingham is faced to bear the excitement that new students and returning students will usher in, with their new IKEA bed linens, fresher’s bands, and a brazen attitude to partying and studying. Students eager to explore Nottingham and enrich themselves in all-things-studenty have a wealth of things to do the first week once back. Here are ten examples to get you started.

1. Explore the campus – Whilst at Nottingham stuck in lectures and seminars, many are hard-pressed to find time to walk around the grounds of the university’s main campus. With a 10-year-consecutive awarding of the greenest university in the UK, a walk around campus is often met with beautiful views and scenery, warranting a pic for the ‘gram.

2. Get to know the city – Freshers and former freshers may have become friendly with the city in their first week, with nightly visits to Pryzm, NG1, Ocean and Rock City during Welcome Week, but a trip to the city in the daytime is even better to become knowledgeable about where to eat, what to visit, and where to be around the city centre.

3. Sign up for a society (or two, or three) – With over 200 societies at offer at the Students’ Union, no student is short of finding a society that doesn’t interest them. Sports societies, linked with the sports clubs at Nottingham, are a great way to socialise with team mates outside of matches and training. Cultural societies offer a home away from home for international students eager to embrace their familiar culture in Nottingham.

4. Visit Wollaton Park and ‘Batman Castle’ – The neighbouring Wollaton Park and its mammoth ancient boarding, featured in the Batman The Dark Knight trilogy, is a Nottingham students’ most-favoured attraction. Lush in greenery and spacious with fresh air, the park is a great spot for summer time barbeques and date-nights under the stars. Best times to go are in October when the sun is still up past 6pm.

5. Buy a city bus pass – Maybe the most worthwhile purchase in your first week, apart from an all-inclusive wristband to the five nights of Welcome Week, is a city bus pass across the areas of Nottingham. Totalling £239, what might appear expensive at first, works out cheaper if you live far away from campus or tend to travel to the city periodically. One way tickets for students aged 19 and over are £1.50, and can easily be purchased on the city’s NCTX mobile app.

“it’s time to relax and let loose”

6. Attend Welcome Week – The best thing to do to embrace student life at Nottingham is to attend Welcome Week, and every activity that the SU has to offer. The tickets for the nights out, set at different clubs and venues across the city centre, are a great way to socialise with people within your hall, and see familiar faces that you’ll later be budding with in lectures.

7. Visit the local Nottingham attractions – A city famous for Robin Hood is a fact that is often known to every Nottinghamshire resident, and a reason to visit the many attractions that holds Hood’s name and history. The old Lace Market area, steeped in rich industrial history, is a trendy spot filled with quirky nightlife venues and coffee shops; whilst the Nottingham Castle, down the cobbled road of the area, is the city’s centre piece of historical significance.

8. Have a pint (or two) at the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem – Nottingham is not only known for the country’s most famous outlaw, but also home to the oldest pub in the land, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. Built into the side of the mountainous vertices of the Nottingham Castle, the pub, dating almost 900 years in age, is a great place to sit down, eat, and drink beer. It’s location and history are a great reason for a trip to the city and a must do in your student life in the city.

9. Sort out module choices and course options – Whilst admin may appear to be drab and complicated, arranging your options for termly study for your first, second, or third year is vital to ensure a place on your courses best looking and most interesting modules. Be sure to visit other schools outside your department to see if you can take their optional modules, such as foreign language courses.

10. Enjoy yourself! You’re finally here! After two years of tough A-levels, deliberating times figuring out your UCAS choices, you’ve ended up at your first choice – Nottingham – and it’s time to relax and let loose. The world is your oyster now. Socialise, meet your best friends and coursemates, learn, and have fun at The University of Nottingham.

Rubin Verebes

Featured image courtesy of rozsagab via Flickr. Image license found here.  No changes made to this image.

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