Fresh Hell!: Fresher's Week Horror Stories

It may not be time for shitfaced Halloween sub-crawls and the unstoppable tide of Chappell Roan, Charli xcx and Sabrina Carpenter Powerpuff Girls costume trios just yet, but it’s never too early to get into the spirit. And what could inspire more soul-devouring dread in our readers than a trip down memory lane? This collection of horrible anecdotes come from anonymous fans of The Skinny (though wouldn’t it be extra spooOOooky if we revealed their identities?) who each had a less-than-glamorous Freshers’ Week experience. 

Hopefully it is in some way therapeutic for them to recall these regrettable moments, and will caution new students to try to avoid getting into similarly miserable situations. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe new students reading this should just anticipate a whole bunch of food poisoning and undesirable NPCs as they prepare for their own Freshers' Week. Maybe it’s just nice to laugh at the misfortune of others. Maybe these submissions aren't even funny. Maybe they’re just pathetic. I dunno, you decide. 

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“Went to a flat party at GSA halls on the first night of Freshers, got to the door with my friend (who had a bowl cut and got in easily) but got told I 'couldn’t come in' because I didn’t fit the art school look lol xx anyway some of them got scabies”

“I gave myself food poisoning the first night by not microwaving my dinner properly”

“Came to uni without a working debit card – had £10 cash to my name, got food poisoning from the only meal I bought, spent my last £2 on a plain croissant from Costa and cried whilst eating half of it there for breakfast. Lived off the free Domino's pizza until the card came the following week :(”

“My flatmate’s friend brought a girl back to our flat (neither of them were at our uni) during Freshers Week, shagged her on the kitchen island and then wiped himself with a random blanket. That blanket was left in the corner of our kitchen for the rest of the year, lovingly named the ‘wanket’”

“My Freshers horror story was moving to Edinburgh and arriving to Pollock Halls (if you know you know). I went back home every weekend for the first three months of Uni… before moving to Edinburgh I had never met a real life Tory. I thought it was an insult rather than an identity – how naïve I was”

“Moved into a shared house with a close mate and an odd guy with a unicycle. He hosted a party, fashioned a beer funnel system out of hosepipes from B&Q and taped it down the stairs, changed all our light bulbs blue. It was a lot” 

“My flatmate was a cannibal”

“Flatmates ate my food and crushed up my cereal for fun :’)”

“During Freshers Week when I was in first year a guy who worked for a local club came into my flat and told us horror stories about the rival club so we wouldn’t go there. We only let him in bc we thought he worked in our accommodation but he was literally a stranger manipulating 17/18 y/o girls”

“Bought a £30 wristband that I never used. Don’t recommend”

“Lock your doors in student accom bc random drunk men will just appear in ur flat”

“Freshers Week – a boy in our corridor only lasted at uni til Christmas. After he’d left we looked in his kitchen cupboard and all he left behind was a good luck at university card from his mum and dad xo”