Below is a testimony of someone's first night in York:

"When I heard from UCAS that I had been accepted onto a course at York University I was so excited. I remember being so frustrated that York didn’t start until October and I found it really boring being at home just waiting to leave. All my friends had already gone so there wasn’t really much to do. During that time, I remember getting ridiculously nervous and so I used that time to box everything up into neat piles ready for the off….I think I was a little too organised to be honest!

Anyway, after much anticipation, the day finally arrived. The car was stuffed to the brim with all my stuff. I’m surprised my dad managed to pack it all in! So, we set off and at this point I was feeling quite sick with nerves. I was still so excited, but really quite scared….what if I couldn’t hack it and had to come home? Then of course, we did the classic thing of getting lost on the way which didn’t help things.

Eventually we arrived at the car park and went to register. All the stycs (second and third year contacts) were there to meet us and help us take things up to our rooms. They were so friendly and already I was beginning to feel slightly more at ease…maybe settling into uni wouldn’t be too bad after all. However, it was such a slog carrying all my boxes to my room. For some reason, the uni had blocked off the quickest way to get to Goodricke C block so we had to go the long way every time. To make matters slightly more complicated I was right on the top floor so had to climb 3 flights of stairs every time! It was hard work but I think the newer blocks have lifts so it was much easier for people who lived in places like Alcuin. There were also trolleys that you could borrow from the porters but they were almost always in use on arrival day.

My room wasn’t as bad I thought it would be. Before leaving, I had heard rumours that Goodricke C block was nick named cell block C due to its breeze block walls and narrow corridors. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the size of my room and even though the walls were actually painted breeze blocks, I did manage to make it look quite homely.

As everyone kept unpacking, I saw new faces run up and down the corridor so was able to say a fleeting hello to them. But it felt weird introducing myself to other students when my parents were around so, although slightly nervous, I was actually glad when they left.

After I had said my final farewell, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. It was rather a strange feeling, quite indescribable. So, I unpacked the rest of my things but left my door open to give me chance to talk to people as they walked by. Within minutes, the parents of the girl opposite me had left and she left her door open too. This worked out really well, so we just turned around and started chatting to each other. It was much easier than I was expecting as we both had the same thing in common….we really had no idea what to do next! As it turned out, other people heard us chatting and came out to meet us. Within 10 minutes, about 6 of us were congregated in the corridor all chatting so we decided to move into the kitchen together. There were 17 of us on our corridor in total, so the 6 of us sat in the kitchen and waited for the others to arrive. It was quite a challenge to remember everyone’s names but I forced myself to do so, making a mental note to myself every time a new person introduced themselves.

We continued to sit around and make polite conversation but before I knew it, the stycs had arrived to take us to our first event! They brought some sweets and played some ice breakers with us then we went off to Goodricke dining hall for the welcome talk. After this we went to Wentworth for a bbq and live music. I found that in that time there was a lot of standing around and waiting in cues, so I used that time to turn to the person next to me and start chatting to them.

By 10pm I was exhausted as it had been such a long day so I walked back to Goodricke C block with a girl from my corridor that I had met earlier that day. I did feel a little stupid leaving early but I was pleasantly surprised when I got back to C block as there were at least 5 other people that had returned early. We sat in someone’s room and just talked for ages and I really enjoyed it.

Eventually, we all went to bed and as I went to sleep I thought ‘well, that really wasn’t all that bad’. I had met loads of new people but had already clicked with some of them really well. I couldn’t get to sleep very easily that night as my head was buzzing with thoughts but I was excited and ready for the rest of the week ahead."