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Now, you might not think that you need a guide to being a fresher – it should just come naturally, right? Wrong. Being the best fresher that you can be is the result of hours of hard work and preparation. It is not a challenge to be taken lightly. To help you on your way, Critic has compiled the following easy guide to freshness.

Step one: Never admit to being a fresher. This may seem counterintuitive, but a good fresher will always claim to be something ridiculous, for example “Yeah I’m third-year Health Sci” or “I’m second-year Med”. No one has ever met a second year Med student, because they don’t have time to frivolously spend doing anything other than studying med.

Step two: Wear your leaver’s jersey everywhere. This is especially effective when combined with step one. Your leaver’s jersey was the coolest fucking thing on the planet when you had just left high school. Now that you’re at uni, it simply indicates that you know nothing, and will be exceptionally annoying. However, not wearing it would be rude. The leaver’s jersey warns the rest of us that you are near, giving us time to get the hell away from you.

Step three: Definitely don’t carry a jacket. The weather in Dunedin is reliably awesome, and it definitely doesn’t change from one hour to the next. There really is no need to be prepared.

Step four: Talk loudly in the library. Personally, I think it is very important that I hear what you thought of that super skux guy that you totally made out with on the dance floor but didn’t go home with cause you were hoping that the other guy from Cumby would call. I want to hear about this as loudly and in as much detail as possible. Preferably while I am attempting to study tax law.

Step five: Go to the Cook, and only to the Cook. Seriously, nowhere else in town comes close to providing the level of service and hospitality that the Cook provides. It’s the perfect bar, and it’s right on your doorstep. Why would you ever go to the Octagon? It’s so far away, and the drinks are so expensive. You’ll get sore feet walking home, and it’s probably going to rain anyway. Seriously dude, the Cook is all you need.

Step six: Don’t burn stuff. Okay, so back in the day, Marc Ellis burnt a couch, and it was hilarious. Nowadays, all that’s going to happen is you’ll get suspended from University, pay a fine to the council and another to the Proctor, and have explain to your parents why you’re living with them again.