Jessie Dutton, Third Year, Sociology
Freshers’ Week, (in)famous for its booze-filled frenzies and week long benders, might be the most talked about week in the grand discourse of university. As something almost ritualistic in the lives of university students, Freshers’ Week holds status as the busiest, the best and most hung-over days of our uni experience. Exploring the city day and night, sharing a flat with strangers, immersed in the culture of your new university city, you meet those who will soon become your best friends. But it's also your wallet’s worst enemy.
Fuelled by pressure to ‘meet your people’, build new friendships and ‘live your best life’, Freshers’ Week in all its glory is underpinned by expensive expectations. From coffee to cocktails, from flatmates to society stalls, you are pushed into a way of living, consumed with the want to fit in–it is vital to socialise! But every social has a price. From splashing the cash to blowing the bank, the expectations seem to remain the same. For you to spend money, this is unavoidable, a prerequisite, almost, to making friends.
What, then, for those who simply cannot afford it?
The University of Bristol is reputed as having a rather large wealth gap. With around 25 per cent of students being privately educated it would come as no surprise if the really nice girl who lives in the room next to you, or that boy in your seminar you really get along with sits pretty comfortably in the financial boat. With the university having bubbles of wealth - take North Village for example,with rooms reaching prices of £13,000 and housing a disproportionate number of students who have been privately educated it's easy to feel poor and out of place here. The paradox lies in the fact that these accommodations are considered some of the most sociable at university. It might only be five pounds on the door, but there is no club without a crowd and, in a crowd, loneliness can be the most pervasive.
Annie McNamee
There is a pressure, then, to keep up with the affluent, to live lavishly, and put every last penny into cementing friendships. For the students who do not have the luxury of spare cash this can breed a deep sense of isolation and separation. The early weeks might be the best of your university experience, ones you will undoubtedly look back on with nostalgic eyes, but battling the desire to fit in and remain financially afloat can be exhausting. Surrounded by the unfamiliar, overwhelmed with the required reading, being homesick, and–let's be honest–hungover, feeling like you can't afford friends is the cherry on top of some already hectic and emotional weeks.
Money aside, those who prefer a quiet night in or mooching in a quaint book shop are easily swarmed with anxiety-inducing expectations and the inevitable feeling of imposter syndrome when the crowd is going clubbing. Pressure to join the club, figuratively and literally, prevails and becomes almost fear-monging, hunting down the introverts and homebodies, gnawing at your wallets.
Sofia Athena Roberts
Want to escape this fate? There's plenty to do without spending a penny: Spike Island and Bristol Museum and Art Gallery are wonderful and free for those of you who enjoy the artsier side of life. For any animal lovers, Windmill Hill City Farm makes for a wholesome, donation-led, day out! Fancy a drink? Head to Vittoria, The Ship, or Barrel House for cheap and cheerful cocktails during happy hours. The occasional venture out of your comfort zone and a night spent club hopping from Sixty-Six to OMG is not regrettable, but remember: if the saying is true that money does not buy happiness, then it cannot buy friends either.
Featured image: Erin Lawson-Smith / Epigram
Have you felt a financial pressure when making friends?
