ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, NEW STUDENTS will be heading off to universities and colleges - excitement flavoured with a touch of trepidation. No more parents telling me to get out of bed! Cheap student bars! But will I enjoy uni/? Will I be able to make new friends? Parents will fret about all the things their wee darlings are about to get up to (which all the wee darlings have already been doing anyway). Yes, there will be able hide under the duvet. Yes, there will be student bars and parties. But there will also be hard work, boring lecturers, deadlines and staying up all night to complete essays and projects. And after three or four years, most graduates will look back on their university life with fondness.

In my first year at university, I 'lived in' with several hundred girls at a single-sex college. Most shared rooms - a way of helping people make new friends. I was regarded as lucky because as a fresher I had my own room. The university tried to match people who shared rooms - same towns, same interests, same courses, that sort of thing. I put on my accommodation form that was an insomniac trumpet player. I got my own room.  

Even so, with people coming from all parts of the country being thrown together, bugs and germs spread like wildfire. Within a week or so, everyone seemed to have a cold or flu.

First year reminded me of the first year at secondary school - all the older kids knew what to do and where everything was. We didn't.  

Freshers' Week will be your introduction to university social life and a wonderful way to get to know new people. Freshers' Week will offer you all sorts of opportunities to join societies devoted to things you never knew you were interested in. You can get carried away and join far too many things - so go a bit easy. Although there were university debating societies, I never joined because they seemed to be dominated by Tory-voting public school types. I got the politics bug years after I left university.

Some lecturers were fantastic - most were not. At school, teachers have been taught how to teach. I don't think there is an equivalent for lecturers. Some were undoubtedly geniuses, but could barely communicate with the students. Not surprisingly, those with flair had packed lecture hall and seminars. It was all too easy to stay curled up under the duvet on a bitter winter's day when faced with a 9am lecture by the dullest of Profs.

And I was shocked to discover that I had lectures on a Saturday morning - what was all that about? Statistics lectures on a Saturday! I think I made it to just one. Apparently, this was to compensate for no lecture on a Wednesday afternoon (to enable the sporty sorts to be sporty). Before uni, I had a Saturday job at Boots, so it seemed a retrograde step to learn stuff on a Saturday morning. Besides, I got involved in doing discos on a Friday night and working in bars, so Saturday mornings were a time to sleep.

Crunch came at the end of first year when I had to take my stats exam - on a Saturday morning, as well, I ask you. Nope, no can do, I thought. The department big shots decided I could retake the exam on a Wednesday afternoon (I didn't do 'rugga', so my Wednesdays were sports-free). Friends gave me a few days coaching on the paper they had just taken. And the exam? It was exactly the same one my pals had gone through with me.

After the first year, I moved out and shared a house with a bunch of lads from a male-only college. We rented bedsits in a huge Victorian terraced house with a massive basement and an attic. I lived in the attic. The whole house shook when trains rumbled along the nearby viaduct. The local pub - the Coalpits - was frequented by Prefab Sprout - readers of a certain age take note.

As regards food, mum may have equipped you with fondue sets, matching saucepans, Sabatier knives, an eight-piece dinner service, but all you really need is a can opener - for cheap tins of beans that don't have a ring-pull top. One saucepan and frying pan should suffice, along with a corkscrew for non screw-top bottles of wine. Pizza, of course, can be eaten straight out of the box using fingers - this means no washing up.

I read in a newspaper the other day that there was a one-day course available - at £250 - to teach new students eight recipes. The ingredients included things I regard as expensive even now! To be honest, I'd have rather had the money.

As students, we rooted round jumble sales and charity shops for clothes. Just call it vintage and you'll be fine.

Laundry, though, divided the sexes. The lads took theirs home to mum. The lasses did their own. Old habits die hard. I hear that there are male MPs who post dirty clothes back home to their wives when they are in Westminster. Yeeeuuuuk!

When I lived in, there was a communal TV room - and just three TV channels. When I moved into the house with the lads, we had two TVs - both black and white. Bo9th were broken - one had pictures and no sound, the other sound and no pictures. Perfect partners.

Money was always tight, of course - nothing new there! I worked in bars to get a few extra pence as well as during holidays. I cleaned loos, worked as a hospital orderly and made pasties (not in the same place)! My little sister worked in a food factory during vacations from Manchester. They were low-paid jobs that few people wanted to do - and no minimum wage. But the extra money was a godsend.  

Back then bank overdrafts became a necessity as well. As soon as I left uni, the bank stepped in and wanted the overdraft paid off. My first job after university was fairly low-paid, but that counted for nothing with the bank. Being dispassionate about out it, the current system would have been better for me. I wouldn't have had any money taken off me in my first few low paid jobs, which would have eased the financial pressures. 

This was, of course, back in the olden days. No mobiles. No computers. Essays written out in longhand. Students queuing by the one phone box to call home - using real money. Texting makes life a bit easier reassuring today's parents. A quick text every now and then to confirm you are alive will work wonders. And keeping in touch with friends from home means the wrench of going away to uni is less worrying - mobile, texting and Facebook makes the move smoother these days.

Although sometimes portrayed as some sort of golden era, it wasn't. I left university with debts. I also left in the middle of a recession - still regarded as a horrendously bad year for graduate recruitment. In the end, we did find work and we have succeeded in our chosen areas of work.  

Just as I refuse to join in with those who say that A levels are easy these days, I do not agree with the people who say that too many young people go to university. Surely it can't be wrong to open up university education? By restricting numbers - as happened when I went - it keeps university as an exclusive club for the minority. While privately educated young people are a minority in this country, they form a much larger percentage of university students. I would bet that if places were restricted, it wouldn't be those in private schools who suffered.

Less than one on seven people who passed their A levels went to university when I went - and fewer young people took A levels than now, as well. Where I went to uni, seemed to mainly attract 'Oxbridge rejects' (as they called themselves), from private schools.

And I will not join the club that slags off modern-day degrees as being 'Mickey Mouse'. The range of degrees today is fantastic and many of the subjects that are criticised exist because of the world of work. Hospitality and tourism? Well, that sector is one of Britain's top ten earners today. Sports economics and management? Take a look at football - there is a huge amount of money involved.

Looking back, though, it was all rather innocent. If we stayed up all night, it was to listen to music or complete essays - aided and abetted by far too much strong coffee. Yes, there were parties, but not a lot of debauchery (that I can remember!). It was hard work and at the same time it was fun. Apart from the academic stuff, I learnt how to be resilient, resourceful and independent.

Enjoy!

26 August 2009