Most first years abuse the freedom and independency:

As we all know, university is nothing like high school. With university there comes more responsibility, independence, freedom and less “spoon feeding”. When entering into university it is time to do your part and on your own.

During first year there are no parents to tell you what you can or can not do, there is no one on your back about doing your work or not going out to party, and there is no one to tell you when to come home or where to go. This is all up to you and it lies in your decision. In university you are free to go out when you want and come back when you want to, you are free to miss your lectures and some hand-ins, and you can are free to go wherever you want to go with whoever you want to go with. You can even sleep over wherever you want to sleep. That is the beauty of university, the independence and freedom. It gives you a feeling of maturity to make your own decisions and gives you a sense of respect and trust from others. First year is time to be all grown up and responsible.

Unfortunately many first years tend to abuse this power. They can sometimes take it too far and take full advantage of it and this may not always be a good thing. In Developing Independence - Parent Times - University Relations Publications - The University of Iowa it states that first year students will have to hear the alarm clock themselves and will have to manage their own checkbook. This is very much abused as first year students tend to believe that first year is a “walk in the park” and is just “one big party”. They start to miss that alarm clock more and more each week, not one day any more but it starts to be weeks at a time. They also start to waste their money on Steers down the road or their regular trips to the Rat and Parrot. I’m sure we can all agree that it is great that we can get cheap “booze”, but it becomes a lot of money when it happens 3 times a week. It also states, as an example, in Developing Independence that Kaitlin Shepherd, a first year student, could walk to town without telling anyone. This could be very dangerous if no one knows where you are in case of an emergency, what if you were raped, or stalked? First years also tend to believe that the work is not too important or that they can get it done the day before the due date. They think that first year work is easy enough to leave until the last minute. They go out two to three times a week, being the regular student night on a Wednesday, the next big night on a Friday, and sometimes even a Saturday, coming back at early hours of the next morning. This then causes them to skip lectures on a Thursday or sleep the weekend days away and neglect their work. Their assignments are then late, missed or a 5 minute job and tests are not always taken seriously.

Many also have a mind set that they have to fit in somewhere specific and in order to do so they must rebel to a certain extent, in other words they must go party when everyone else is doing it, they must leave their work to the last minute so that they are not seen as nerds and they must have money to spend. This party scene and neglecting the work becomes part of the first year ideology and people tend to take to it, sometimes a little too much. I have a friend, for example, who loves partying and whenever I ask if she is going out her reply will be something like “of course I am”. She is also a good example of someone who leaves her work for the day before the due date and this causes work to pile up and you eventually become tired put and drained. In Your First Year at University it states that students have a reputation for partying, not going to lectures and spending lots of money. This is the view that many first years take on and try to live up to.

I think that first years should try to organize their lives and create an equal balance between partying or their social life and their work. They should also try and manage their money better. They need to take the freedom, which comes along with university, with responsibility and start looking out for themselves. What students do not like to party? I understand that and agree that we need a social life, but we also need a balance for work, after all, isn’t that the reason why we are here?