Look no further you fantastic liberation people, you can find out all (or some) of what you need to know right here.
Before you meet any of our liberation team at Royal Holloway, you'll probably want to get to know your flatmates on a night out or during the day sometime. It will most likely be a great experience and you'll make some fantastic friendships. But remember, you don't have to do anything you feel uncomfortable with, and that's fine. If the group isn't your fit you'll be bound to meet a ton more people over the course of the week and find people you love to hang out with. And don't be afraid of calling people out if they say something offensive; most likely there will be others their who felt the same but didn't want to speak out.
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For some other useful tips, check out the guardians' feminist guide to freshers' week.
During welcome week, each liberation officer will be holding events for their caucus. Here's a quick list of each one so you can plan your week:
LGBT+ 'pub quiz' in Imagine. Non Alcholic and great way to meet people. Tuesday 23rd at 6pm.
Women and Marginalised Genders cake decorating meet and greet in Imagine. Wednesday 24th 3-5pm.
Disabled Students Campus Tour Wednesday 24th 5pm (I'll update this with a place one I know where it is)
BME Cultures and Ethnicities Meet and Greet, Thursday 25th 3-5pm (Again I'll pop a place on here as soon as it's confirmed)
Just remember when you come to university it's not compulsory to suddenly have the best time of your life, though often you will feel the most liberated, and it might be the most understood you've been in your life so far. As well as trying out sport to keep a positive mental attitude (head down to the sport's hall during fresher's fayre to find out more), you'll also have access to all the university's (free!) welfare schemes including counselling, disability and dyslexia services, and the health centre. These can all be found here https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/ecampus/welfare/home.aspx, so check it out and make sure you know who to contact, they are all there to help :)
We also have Tina, a welfare advisor in the SU, who you can pop in and see or call up on 01784 246700, and any out of hours support or for anything that goes outside of what the college offers, check out this webpage http://www.su.rhul.ac.uk/advice/wellbeing/.
Where are all these places anyway?
Here's a quick guide to finding some of the places I've mentioned. To get to Imagine, you need to head to the back of the Hub and down the stairs, for disabled access, you can head down the ramp behind the hub and enter through a door on the same level as Imagine. (If you want to know about other buildings check out this access guide https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studentlife/documents/pdf/accessguide.pdf)
I hope this has been useful to a few of you, for more general Freshers advice check out this post from The Orbital, our student magazine http://theorbital.co.uk/advice-freshers-wont-tell-welcome-pack/
Remember to find your relevant liberation pages on Facebook and Twitter for more news, and I'll see you during freshers!
Imogen x
