A new decade with some new faces – welcome first years! You’ve been told a hundred times by now, but this is going be a very exciting time of your life. University is freedom like you’ve never known. Freedom to explore yourself, to explore others (safely) and to explore your future.

University is very different compared to high school. This can be great in that you have more freedom to express yourself, less rules and the space to make your own decisions. But it can also be scary: no one asks if you are in class, your lecturers won’t follow up with you if you miss an assessment, and if you live on The Strip and never in a book, it’s up to you to pass your modules. It can feel overwhelming, but try to remember that everyone you see around campus either feels how you feel or has felt it at some point. Every one of us was a nervous first year and we all coped and made it through – you will too. While there aren’t teachers checking in on you, you can ask for help. You should never feel so alone that you don’t have hope. Ask for help if you need it, speak to a trusted lecturer, the student counsellors on campus, your res HK or a friend. Don’t stay silent when you need help.

Your time at the University of Pretoria will depend on what you make of it. It is easy to come to class and go home, to keep student life and your life separate, and if that’s what you’d prefer, that’s perfect. However, it is also possible to immerse yourself in student life. There are countless societies on campus and you’re bound to find a group of students with the same interests as you. Often the pressure of academic expectations can feel overwhelming and having a group of friends who enrich your university experience beyond the academics really promotes a healthier attitude towards your education.

This really is your time. Explore who you are as a person, what you want from your life and what steps you want to take to get there. Often we feel pressured to have a plan and a five year forecast into our future but it’s okay if you feel lost and it’s okay if you don’t know what you want yet. If you can’t take the time at university to find yourself and discover what you want to spend your life doing, when could you ever?

This edition of PDBY is our “First Year’s Edition” and has everything you need to navigate student life and be campus savvy. A helpful guide to campus for its more social aspects can be found on page 14 and if you’re looking to find your textbooks early, read the textbook guide on page 12. Try scanning one of the QR codes in the newspaper and read our online exclusives that get published throughout the year. Also, as the first student night approaches during O-Week, we’ve included an essential tour of Hatfield night life on page 19. However, there are also important numbers throughout this edition such as for the Brooklyn SAPS and UP Student Counselling Centre.

Pages 20 and 21 are “fun and games” and can help you stay entertained through dragging introductory lectures or long orientation programmes. Make sure to meet Pssst… while you’re on page 21. Pssst… is PDBY’s staple gossip column and lives under the floorboards in the PDBY office. You’re welcome to come and visit.

Of course, some shameless plugging is unavoidable. PDBY is the university’s official newspaper as well as the oldest and largest student newspaper in South Africa. If you’d like to be part of PDBY we have positions for every interest, from journalism to design, from editing to video production. There’s an application form on page 8, you should fill it out and apply.

Best of luck with your first year! And take it easy, in twelve short months, you too will be wondering why the first years look so frightened.

Kayla Thomas