O-Week is a fun and messy confusion of emotions. In a span of seconds, you can catapult from feeling awkward and completely uncomfortable to being the life of the party. You’re all over the place for the whole week, so it’s hard to pin down a logical progression of emotions.

Not so for your first proper week of uni. The smoke has cleared and the dust has settled, and now the cold realities of a full semester of tertiary education lie ahead. So how’s that first week going to feel? Here’s a day-by-day play-by-play. 

Day 1: Dread

This is it. After a summer spent waiting for your ATAR, messing around at schoolies and making an arse of yourself at O-Week, you’re actually starting a university degree today. And it’s terrifying.

We dread new experiences, plain and simple. A change of circumstance might seem compelling in an abstract sense, but when push actually comes to shove we all become scared shitless of following through on promised major life changes. That’s especially so for university.

You’re essentially volunteering to feel like a Year 7 again, on the lowest rungs of the adulthood ladder. It’s more than volunteering in fact, because you’re paying a HECS of a lot of money just to be there.

Day 2: Confusion  

That’s why the first day will most likely pass by in a blur. The second day’s different – it’s more about getting a lay of the land.

It starts with your first morning lecture. Uni campuses are big, like seriously large. Picture an elite wanky North-Shore of Sydney private school and I can guarantee you that any uni in the country is at least twice that size (unless you go to RMIT in which case, R.I.P space).

So you’ll get lost on your way to your first class. Lost on Campus is a useful app, but it’s seriously hard to understand, especially if you’re stressed out.

That’s why you’ll be five minutes late for your afternoon lecture, but you’ll skip it, because you’re too afraid to walk into the lecture theatre after everyone else. 

Day 3: Awkwardness  

Confusion inevitably leads to awkwardness. At lunch on Day three, you’ll scan the food court for a good feed, get intimidated by all of the international students who seem to have delicious meals, and then you’ll just settle for Subway.

“Can I sit here?” you think of asking to an equally awkward first-year in your tutorial. But you chicken out, and end up sitting next to the friendly mature-aged student because it’s easier to talk to old people.

At the end of day three you’ll accidentally walk into the wrong lecture theatre, sit down, then realise you’re in a bio med class.

But you’ll still sit through it. Even worse, you’ll probably feel so awkward that you’ll end up taking notes.

Day 4: Confidence???

OK, as much as I’d like this article to end on a positive note, I just can’t promise that by the end of the first week you’ll be completely comfortable in your new surroundings; nailing your classes and dating Stacey, the head cheerleader.

What I can tell you is that by the end of first week, things will start making a little bit more sense. You’re going to adjust quicker than you think, and come to realise that all of these new challenges are a very small price to pay for the boundless freedoms of uni life.

Days 5-7: Three-Day Weekend

Look at you! You got in early and scored a good timetable. Now make like Calvin Harris and get ready for the weekend!

(Lead image: Awkward/HBO)