Like lambs to the slaughter, they will arrive in the city in the next few days, outwardly confident while trembling inside.

The middle of September traditionally heralds the start of the academic year at our universities.

For the newcomers, there will be impromptu welcoming parties, gatherings in halls of residence, with earnest discussions and hare-brained high jinks, fuelled by cans of alcohol and Domino’s pizza, extending into the early hours.

Nervous 18-year-olds will feign interest in the near-death experiences of 19-year-olds who have just returned, “like yesterday”, from their gap “yah”.

The conversation goes like this:

Student One (studying ancient history and classics, his belongings in a weather-beaten, sand-crusted rucksack): “Thailand was like absolutely awesome. Like everyone should go there. So spiritual. So Thai. The people are soo gentle. Did you go there on your gap yah?”

Student Two (studying accountancy, belongings in his mum’s old suitcase): “No. I went to Devon.”

Student One: “Wicked! No really ...”

This is only a precursor to the awkwardness that lies ahead – the hardcore horror that is known as “Freshers’ Week.”

It’s a couple of decades and then some since I was put through academia’s ritual torture of its latest recruits, but I can still recall the hysteria of the “welcoming” drinks receptions, discos and the recruitment “fairs” held by clubs and societies to entice virgin blood and, quite possibly, virgins.

Now there are a number of crucial tips that no one gives to newbies, least of all the universities themselves, much less the representatives of the student union/guild.

So I am going to spell out a few of them. Think of it, if you are a fresher, as a public service announcement.

The first important lesson to understand is that all of the second and third-year students who attended freshers’ events, ostensibly in an attempt to boost the membership of their club or society, are in no way representative of the majority of the student body.

Most undergraduates are, in fact, as apathetic as the rest of us about joining the University American Football Club, going orienteering or signing up for the Goth Society.

Would you have joined the Transcendental Meditation Society back home? No? Then don’t bother at uni. It’s only a front for copping off and drinking. I am running ahead of myself though. There is a crucial thing to do even before you have left home and arrived at your digs. It is going to hurt but it’s best to get it out of the way now.

Should you be in a relationship, with a sixth-form sweetheart perhaps, end it immediately. Long-distance relationships in late adolescence are doomed. People will think you are creepy.

Yeah, you say you love her, she says she loves you, but it isn’t going to last. Forget the heart-felt pledges, forget the promises to write every night, forget the cuddly toys from Hallmark that you gave each other. Because it is written in the stars that one of you will have forgotten the other within a week of leaving home.