Surviving the first year of University

Anyone who held a conversation with Christine Spence was considered a friend during her first week at Rhodes University. She believes that she had to appear acceptable to everyone. Christine, getting ready for her first night out, would ask the girls “Hey, what are you wearing tonight?”. “I did this so that I could dress similar to the other girls,” her eyes vivid with memory. During Orientation Week, Christine perceives that all of the first years behave like sheep; “If someone suggests an idea, even if it's trivial, we would all agree profusely”. The few weeks following Orientation week, Christine got to know her group of friends. This was brought about by “having a drunken night where you sit down and have deep meaningful conversations with these friends”. This, Christine believes, creates the strong friendship bonds that will determine who you'll hold dear.
With regard to choosing subjects, Christine feels that “when picking my subjects, I should have chosen the ones that created the maximum amount of options for me, but I didn't know it at the time.” When Christine chose her subjects, she chose them soley for the purpose of being in the same lectures as her other three friends.
When Christine attended the first day of lectures, she felt out of place and stupid. “I realised that there was no more spoon feeding like there was in high school”. Christine goes further to say that there is no one in the lecture who cares if she passes or failes and she realises that “It is up to me to make sure that I do the work.”
Christine feels that the only thing that was worse than lectures was her first chemistry practical. “Even though I had all these great gadgets, I had no idea what I was doing”. She tried to ask the administrator for help, and he would reply in scientific gibberish and “I would nod my head in understanding, all the while not knowing what the hell was going on”.The trick, christine believes, is to befriend a clever person to get all the tips. “That's how I managed to get through the first practical causing only minimal damage,” she says amusingly.
After the practical, Christine would traipse towards the dining hall to eat the “disgusting res food”. Now the starvation sets in. Sadly, she has no money to buy anything that slightly resembles nourishment because of her indulgence of Pirates Pizza. After the first couple of weeks, Christine came to the realisation that she could change her meals to “something edible”.
The parties in university are bigger and better than the ones in high school. Also, they aren't limited to the weekend. Christine can “party like a beast”, but she knows that she has to bear lectures the next morning. She finds that she can easily go out and drink the entire week and sleep the whole weekend. But Christine also believes that “Even though I have the freedom to do it, I have to set limitations”. She believes, as a first year, that she has to maintain physical activity to ensure that she doesn't become “ a victim of first year spread”. She realised that she has to “drag myself out of bed, go to lectures, do all my work as soon as possible so that I can get a good night's sleep”. Even though Christine enjoys partying instead of working, “you have to find a balance otherwise you'll burn out and fail”.