Young ones: you'll have one 'Ull of a time here

So you're 18, you've just spent your formative years growing up in the idyllic surroundings of Chipping Sodbury or somewhere Andrew Mitchell doesn't think is beneath him and today is your first day away from Mama, Papa, Christabelle the pony and all your mates at the Gymkhana.

Welcome to Hull, new student. Hold on to your hat.

No, seriously, hold it as tight as you can because if you don't, someone will nick it.

As anyone who has traipsed through town this week may have noticed, there are a lot of fresh-faced young studenty types wandering around looking dumbstruck and just a little terrified.

Some of them are being shepherded around in single-file crocodiles formations by grizzled, third-year tour guides, pointing out the places they should get drunk in, and those they should avoid like the plague.

Most of these fresher lambs to the slaughter gawp at the street scene unfolding in front of them with wide-eyed amazement – probably because they've never seen so many shell suits and impossibly young fatties on mobility scooters all concentrated together in one place before.

It's a joy to behold, like watching Keanu Reeves emerge from The Matrix and seeing the real world for the first time.

So gird your loins, it's going to be a baptism of fire.

But now I've put the willies up you – something else you'll no doubt have been getting to grips with during Freshers' Week – let me be the first to reassure you.

Hull may be a slightly peculiar, isolated and odd kind of town – but once you get used to our little ways, I think you'll find it a wonderful place.

If you like, you can think of me as your uncle Ian.

I'll be here to dispense wisdom that is beyond your young idealistic and utterly naive years.

As someone who first went to university in 1993 – that's nearly a terrifying 20 years ago – I have no doubt that my experiences and advice about student life are in no way out of date.

So here I'll do my best to give you all the information you need to survive three years of living on cold beans and kebabs.

(All advice is taken entirely at the user's own risk and Ian cannot be held responsible for any resultant food poisoning).

The first thing you need to know is this:

Following a night out in the city centre, stumbling down Beverley Road at 2am, updating your Twitter account on your new iPhone 5 is not a good idea.

Anyone approaching you and saying "Gers yer merberle fern" is not offering a traditional, friendly, East Yorkshire welcome.

He is not asking you to join him on Linkedin and he is definitely not someone who'd be interested in swapping notes on your last lecture on the role of protofeminism in Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice.

As someone who once had seven shades kicked out of him under a railway bridge in Nottingham by student-bashers and subsequently had to suck Christmas dinner through a straw, I know this for a fact.

Secondly, promoters will be desperately telling you their clubs and pubs are the best night out this side of Goole at the moment. Don't believe them.

The only place you need to go for the unique Hull music experience is The Adelphi, in De Grey Street.

Any venue that doesn't look a tramp's squat and has doors on the toilets is for wusses.

Thirdly and finally, bearing in mind there are going to be no jobs waiting for you when you graduate with £50,000 of debt in three years' time, don't be so dismissive of your mind-numbing summer jobs.

Let's face it, a BA hons in 13th century Serbo-Croat Basket Weaving is hardly going to open many doors into the actual world or work. Trust me, I've tried it.

My advice, should you choose to accept it, is to use the fact you only have three hours of lectures a week to start a generation-defining dotcom business from your squalid student bedroom. It worked for Mark Zuckerberg.

And most importantly, never believe you've been accepted as a Hull native until you can say the sentence: "Er ner, I'm just nipping down this tenfoot with a patty butty in a bread cake for me bairns" and fully understand what you're on about.