I just recently moved to Swansea, Wales for school. It was through CSU’s International Program that I was able to take this opportunity to study abroad. I left home excited and a little nervous to experience college—or university as they call it over here—in a new country. I wasn’t too worried though because I wouldn’t have to learn an entirely new language. But I came to realize that I would experience differences in other areas.

In the UK, universities country wide hold an extended event called Fresher’s Week—sometimes even Fresher’s Fortnight. This is essentially one long event where parties are thrown by the university itself. These can range from meet and greet opportunities to actual night club parties. In the UK, the legal drinking age is 18, so the entrance into college is quite the milestone. I went to the UK kind of expecting it to be tamer than the US university system, but I was wrong about that. You can think of the university basically encouraging students to get all of the partying and drinking out of their system by the time the first week of classes comes around.

In comparison with U.S. colleges, this is very different. Since the legal drinking age in the United States is 21, freshmen in college cannot legally drink, even though most do anyway. Universities in America police underage drinking and do not, to my knowledge, throw specific events that offer alcohol on site like those in the U.K. There is a lot more social drinking here, rather than just the drinking to get drunk type of drinking seen back home, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

As someone who doesn’t drink very often, this was my first instance of culture shock. I bought a pretty expensive wristband ticket to get into these Fresher’s events not fully realizing what the events actually were. I have had fun going to dances and clubs this past week, but it is clear that I burn out a lot more quickly than those who are from around here and are used to this kind of thing.