Written by Lily Craig
My freshers week got off to a bad start and was, admittedly, likely cursed from the outset. A week prior I had sustained a simultaneously prominent and humiliating injury, having burst a blood vessel in my eye (projectile vomiting, Ministry of Sound). Thus, I set off to halls with a unique talking point — a red and bloody right eye, which gave me the appearance of a sleep-deprived vampire, or else a volatile addict undergoing some kind of withdrawal. To worsen matters, the morning of the move I inexplicably contracted scarlet fever, a curiously Victorian disease, and spent the day in A&E. Abandoning the long NHS queues, I simply moved into my accommodation, boiling and blotchy red, blisters in my throat and with a worryingly pronounced rash. Naturally, I didn’t go out that night or the next.
The week progressed in an alarmingly consistent trajectory. I’m sure when I finally made it clubbing that was enjoyable, I have little recollection. Other scrapes of the week included accidentally befriending a masters student and joining her on a night out with, as should have been expected, a group of 23-year-olds. At 18, the discussion of classical composers and the Baroque felt out of my reach, and when being put on the spot, fuelled by many panicked trips to the bar, I prevaricated, misrepresenting my brief stint as a french horn player (I quit age 11) into an elaborate career. After being asked to join their brass band, I modestly declined, claiming I didn’t play in front of others. I left quickly after offering a few more outrageous contributions to the conversation, which had turned back to Bach.
Nearing the end of the first two weeks, bogged down and panicky about reading the entirety of The Republic before my first political theory class, I attended War Society’s give it a go. Sitting with my friends at the only table of girls in the packed room, we struggled with the brief of proposing a joint US-UK military and diplomatic response to a terrorist attack on a US embassy in Qatar. After 20 minutes of constructing a multi-step counterplan, whilst simultaneously adapting to dramatic geopolitical “updates”, each team began a strictly 5-minute-long presentation on their planned course of action. Watching the other groups confidently pace up and down, each delivering successive eloquent presentations on how they would invoke article 5 of the constitution or blah blah blah (I zoned out in terror), I felt total panic. We had nothing nearly as concise or erudite to present; the group ended up not presenting at all. Not only had I, yet again, embarrassed myself, but let down my feminist-standing, and perhaps the entirety of womankind. The series of unfortunate events culminated the following day, as, sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, I was near-attacked by a pigeon — the point at which I finally cracked. Getting on the bus back to my family home, I decisively messaged my mother to inform her I was dropping out.
Writing this article for the Beaver a year on, it is clear that I have not (yet) dropped out. Perhaps the usual conclusion here would be to reassure readers that everything gets better: it does not. It may likely get worse. However, perhaps I can provide some source of comfort. I hope my freshers week proves that not all LSE students are hyper-productive, flawless fin bros. Some of us remain normal… able to make mistakes, face consistent embarrassment and imposter syndrome, yet end first year with many more stories to tell.
