Welcome the new dawn

Attitude – check, style – check, money – check, bed – check. Hey-ho, let’s go. The new term. The lengthening evenings, the first frosts, the library, the bar, the new smells, the echoes of what has been. The old skin is shed and the new one grown.

The student life is disconnected from the real world. You are exempted from a wide range of the controls and pressures that the rest of us deal with. That’s the point of it! Anyhoo, as you embark on this great adventure, here’s ten pieces of advice to bear in mind.
First, forget what you learned in school about almost everything. More importantly, forget about how you learned in school or grind college. In this new environment you’re assumed to be independent and responsible for your own affairs. Be so.
Second, balance hope and cynicism. Write bittersweet poetry if you want to. As often as possible find a good café or bar and hang out there all afternoon. You never know whom you’ll meet. Writers, film-makers, musicians, artists – talk to them! A time will come when you can’t do that because the time just isn’t there.
Third, get political. We need students to be uppity and a nuisance. That’s partly why they exist. So get political, organise and protest.
Develop a social conscience and a critical awareness. You’re privileged – lots of people don’t get to college at all. Ask why this is. Why is our society socially reproductive? Why has the gap between rich and poor grown in recent years, even though we’ve become a richer society? Students have a duty to be concerned and pissed off about things like this.
Always get angry about the environment. Is Martin Cullen a vandal? If not, why has he not guaranteed that the recently discovered Viking town in Waterford (his own constituency!) will be preserved?
And housing… yes I know the housing crisis hits students hard and keeping the wolf from the door is tough, but there are others who are even less well-off and, whereas you may look forward to a reasonable standard of living whenever you finish, they’re stuck. So, support campaigns for social housing!
Fourth, you simply must join loads of societies and groups. It’s a great way to create a melting pot. Leave them as soon as you’re bored. Make friends. Be open. Learn to hear as well as honk.
The fifth is that this is the great laboratory of your future life. Experiment in everything, but be safe in sex, drugs and alcohol. A college is many things. One of these is a major dating agency. So, lads always wear your raincoat. Gals, don’t be afraid to insist – he’s so grateful to be getting some he’ll oblige.
And while I’m on about sex, I never met a woman who didn’t like the words “say when”… And “let’s try for just one more and this time I’ll come too”. So take your time boys. Gals – never judge a book by the cover. You can’t actually predict which one will turn out to be the ride of your life, but (s)he’s out there!
As for alcohol, well the Irish have caught the British disease of drinking for oblivion. We weren’t always thus. Once we drank for pleasure. It’s your choice. If you want to get really drunk and binge, fine. But you don’t have to, even if everyone else is doing it. The only one making you do it is yourself.
Getting sick on your best friend’s back or shoes is just so uncool. Only another drunk loves a drunk. And if you keep hearing about things you’ve done but can’t remember doing, ease off before you have a major problem.
As for drugs, let’s be realistic. There’s a lot of them about, they’re cheap and very often they’re effective. Be informed and be wary and then, if you want to, go for it. Never do drugs just to be invisible. And remember, you can get unlucky. My best friend died of an overdose in his third year in college. Blew a glittering career and left a pregnant girlfriend. Shit happens. Just try to not let it happen to you.
The sixth? Eat well! Junk food is one of life’s great bloating pleasures, so grub up once in a while. And college canteens have improved beyond all measure in recent years. But cooking your own great food is actually pretty easy.
Honest! Just get a good simple book and follow the instructions! Try Nigel Slater’s Appetite (4th Estate) or Edouard de Pomiane’s great student classic Cooking in Ten Minutes (Lilliput Press).
The seventh follows – never diet. You’ll lose weight alright, but it always goes back on. Learn to love yourself and live with your shape. If you’ve a problem in this, give up on the five Ps – pastries, pastas, pizzas, potatoes and pints. I swear it works. Some regular exercise is a good idea too.
The eighth is to do with the sickening realisation that you’re in the wrong course. If so, drop out. That’s what an astonishing 30% of students do. It’s much better to go and do something you want to do.
Here’s the ninth: if you need help, ask for it. Don’t be shy and don’t be afraid. If you feel depressed, find someone to talk to. It’s pretty common and it can be sorted. And if your friend has trouble, don’t be too shy to offer an ear. To be brutally straight, it could save a life.
And the tenth? Ignore all of the above to do the right thing. If you’re open and ready to listen, that thing will be clear as a bell.
It’s the time of your life. Live it.
The Hog