With little in common except nerves, even the brainiest freshers can struggle to come up with original opening lines in their anxious first hours at university. But tense and tiring though it can be, freshers’ week is really the storm before the calm. Once you have learnt a few names, registered at the libraries and got your bearings in a new town, you can settle back and spend the rest of the term getting to know the people and places you met in the whirlwind of the first week.

Making the effort early on can pay dividends: friendship groups form quickly, and introducing yourself to as many people as possible in the first days will make things easier later. People are seldom friendlier than when they have not made any friends of their own, so the first week is your chance to catch them at their most approachable. It might become tiring, but making the most of the first week is well worth it.

If partying isn’t your thing, you can join all kinds of societies and organisations, from the sporting and cultural to the plain silly. A vigorous game of kabaddi is a good way to get to know people; equally you may find like-minded friends at the Gary Lineker appreciation society, based at St Andrews University.

The student lifestyle of plenty of free time but not much money means that clubs and societies flourish and most universities run a “freshers’ fair” for newcomers to check them all out. Be warned that signing up for too many can lead to your inbox overflowing with such bulletins as “This week in varsity tiddlywinks”. Backing out is usually easy, though, and it is not a bad idea to err on the side of excess.

Burning the candle at both ends can become expensive, and the first tip from veterans to help you get through freshers’ week is to “bring lots of money”. With any luck you should receive the first instalment of your loan around the start of term, and setting up a student bank account will give you an overdraft of £1,000 or so to play with. Don’t worry if you soar over your budget in the first week — freshers’ week is not a normal week.

Many of the week’s greatest attractions — cheap booze, eager single people and distance from parents — have an evil twin, namely hangovers, ill-judged clinches and homesickness. Like the Buddha you must seek the middle way to achieve fresher nirvana. It takes a lot of alcohol to kill you but not all that much to make you vomit on your new acquaintances, so make sure you know your limits before moving on to the vodka and Red Bull pitchers. Whatever you feel about drugs, it should be obvious that miles from home, surrounded by near strangers, is not a good place to experiment.

Being dropped off at university by your parents might be embarrassing, but it is well worth bringing them along to say goodbye, especially if they have an estate car. Today’s student is incomplete without a PC, stereo, and a variety of fancy dress costumes — and carting all this on the train would be a struggle. CDs in particular are terribly bulky, so you could hint to your parents how much space an iPod would save. A kettle and plenty of mugs are other important social items. If you don’t like tea, then spend the rest of the summer practising drinking it so you can invite neighbours around for a cuppa.

Other items for the suitcase are photos of friends and family — partly in case you miss them but also to suggest how popular you are.

Students often joke that their freshers’ week was so good that they can’t remember it. Heavy drinking may play a part in this, but that first week takes a back seat in my university memories as the following years were so enjoyable. Lasting friendships, lazy days, hazy nights — even the odd bit of work — you will remember these things about university. While freshers’ week can give you a flying start to all this, it will not make or break your student life.

Follow the middle path and you should be fine, but pack the Alka-Seltzer just in case.

CNN courts young scribes

CNN has announced the fourth edition of the CNN Young Journalist Award (CNN YJA) in association with ITC-Welcomgroup. This year, two new categories have been added — CNN Aspiring Journalist Award, in collaboration with Hindustan Times, and the CNN Citizen Journalist Award, in partnership with CNN-IBN.

Launched in 2003, the CNN YJA is targeted at journalists in India and Pakistan within the age group of 22 to 28 years, in the print or television categories. While the CNN Aspiring Journalist Award is targeted at students of journalism who have just appeared or are appearing for their final examinations, CNN Citizen Journalist Award is open to citizens of India, who are not professional journalists.

Entrants to the ‘Television’ category must submit a feature-style TV news package aired between January 1, 2006 and September 30, 2006. Submission must relate to a news story relevant to any part of India or Pakistan. For the ‘Print/Online’ category, entries must include three copies of the original article or photocopy of the news article, written solely by the entrant and published in an Indian or Pakistani publication or on an Indian or Pakistani website between the period January 1, 2006 and September 30, 2006. The last date for receiving entries is October 12, 2006, for entries from India and October 7, 2006, for entries from Pakistan.

Entrants to the CNN Aspiring Journalist Award have to submit an essay in 1,000 words on the topic, ‘Are sting operations justified?’ The entrants can be nominated by the principal or the head of their department of their institutes. They can also apply independently. But in that case, the entry has to be validated by the principal or their department head.

Entry forms can be obtained either by writing to Turner International India Pvt Ltd, S-2 Level, Block-F, International Trade Tower, Nehru Place, New Delhi — 110019 or by logging on to the CNN YJA website: www.cnnasiapacific.com/yja. All entry forms must be accompanied by proof of age and experience.

For more information, please contact either Raman Swain, CNN South Asia, Tel: (011) 4169 9129, e-mail: raman.swain@turner.com, or Lakshmi Datta, CMCG India, Tel: (022) 24450991, E-mail: lakshmi.datta@cmcgindia.com.