As students’ unions embark on the chaos and excitement of the autumn term, there are three things that are front of mind for freshers, and we do freshers a disservice by not talking about them.
Jobs, loneliness and belonging are key areas which freshers are concerned about whilst settling into their university life, but in my experience there can be a lack of urgency, transparency and candour with which freshers are spoken to about these topics.
Let’s break down what the barriers might look like for freshers in their first term, and what students’ unions could do to help.
Getting a job fast
The sector is shifting to adapt to a world where students work, with more students’ unions and universities finding opportunities for flexible campus jobs for the majority of students who have no choice other than to work alongside their studies.
The 2025 Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES) found that 68 per cent of students were undertaking paid work during term-time, and Wonkhe’s Belong data with Cibyl shows that students are primarily working to pay for bills, and that a third are struggling to balance work and study.
We are seeing some institutions change their operations to meet this need, for example the University of Kent committing to releasing returning student timetables from August to enable students to adjust their working commitments. This is a positive sign, but there’s more which SUs could do to help, especially for freshers.
A sense of urgency can be lacking in how SUs communicate to students about on-campus jobs, making the freshers who most need income feel othered and stressed. This results in the students who are most desperate for income finding other off-campus work, which is likely to have less generous terms, more inconvenient working hours, or a longer commute.
This year SUs can use the autumn term to audit their information about on-campus jobs, highlight timelines for getting into roles and getting paid, what their rights are in the workplace and focus on outreach as much as possible.
Creating waitlists for on-campus roles would allow freshers to sign up and receive regular information about when recruitment will open and associated timelines. SUs may want to reflect on the guidance and structures they use as part of their recruitment processes too. For example, whilst group interviews are useful to enable many students to go through a recruitment process, they can be a frightening prospect for a student who may never have done an interview before, and mean freshers worry about standing out amongst more experienced students.
Even once a student has secured a role on campus, student worker finance systems can often be confusing or slow to pay students. Better guidance, clearer channels for students to raise concerns, and clarity about these processes will help freshers to know they’ll get paid for their work as quickly as possible.
The loneliness challenge
Students want to know what to expect from their university experience. The first term is overwhelming enough for freshers without feeling isolated and lonely against a backdrop of everyone else seemingly having a great time.
Unite Students Applicant Index found in 2025 that 24 per cent of applicants feel lonely all or most of the time, and Wonkhe’s Belong data with Cibyl shows correlation between students having course friends and their feelings towards their institution’s academic services and support.
Salford Students’ Union is pushing for change in this area, with their students’ union strategy focused on the challenge of loneliness, and how they can become an anti-loneliness SU.
SUs are well-placed to lead in these campaigns, alongside broader support from their university. Alongside embedding an approach to loneliness across the year, there is a good opportunity within the first term to talk about the realities of university life. SUs can capitalise on this time where freshers are more likely to be using and engaging with their services.
Institutions can pin-point times throughout the autumn term to have honest conversations with students. This could be in welcome week, during induction sessions, by encouraging academic societies to send out information about support or scheduling in emails and newsletters which share information about support services a few weeks into the term.
SUs can share information about how students can make friends, the diversity of events and opportunities at the union, and what resilience may be required to put themselves out there to attend socials, events or speak to their course peers. By giving students information about how to overcome common challenges and recognising that it’s normal to struggle to make friends, freshers will be better equipped to engage in university life.
It’s transformative but it’s also hard
Starting university is a unique and exciting time where students are exploring how they want to live and build their lives whilst studying. But it’s a scary one too for students trying new experiences, doing things they have never done before and desperately trying to belong to a new community.
Integrating into university life can also cause students to reconcile with their identity, which may be upsetting. Especially for freshers, they may find themselves conscious about their accent, homesick and dealing with comments from family members and friends about how they have changed since going to university, or struggling to feel like they belong with their peers. These experiences can be deeply unsettling and may cause freshers to consider whether university is right for them.
Rather than letting this go unacknowledged, engaging with issues of identity within the first term can show students they are not alone. This might include working with societies and student experience teams at institutions to run awareness campaigns, or hosting discussions for students to reflect on how they have found their university experience so far and what support they need.
Leading with the truth this freshers
Talking about these issues and challenges is the key to solving them. Freshers deserve to know what the student experience encompasses in its entirety and students’ unions can help provide the answers to some of the most pressing questions they have on their minds this term.
Students are unlikely to ask for help in a system where they don’t feel seen, heard or valued. We need to show freshers that we care and that they matter. It helps everyone to acknowledge that university can be a transformative space – which may include some challenges amongst the many good experiences.
This autumn term, students’ unions should be honest about what freshers really want to know and continue to actively listen to what students have to say.
