Entering his third year, Joshua King looks back at how his time at university started. From The Founder, at the University of London’s Royal Holloway:

I  am a third year, and at this time of year that means I am two things: smug and angry. The reasons are two-fold. I am smug because I already have a fairly established group of friends and I am angry because most Freshers seem to already have more than me. Now, I’m not going to say I feel old or past my time, but even with all my awareness of local pubs and prophetic knowledge of which books Freshers on my course will be studying, I am finding it more difficult than ever to strike up a conversation with a stranger- and I didn’t at all find it easy to begin with. So, after just a few days, it seems my dream of being seen as some sort of omniscient deity by these new people is over before it even began, and my chances of making some cool new friends is decreasing as my age goes up.

I remember arrival weekend two years ago, when I was in the same position of knowing no one and expecting the worst. I had spent half my Saturday sat in a cramped car trying not to cry, and the other half crying into my brand new pillowcase…

Full story here.