In my opinion, the first two weeks of this semester were rather good. In general, all was quiet; there were three others living in a house of twenty rooms, and it was more than possible to go from day to day without seeing the other final years at all. No offence to them intended; it was just nice having so much room. There was space in the fridge, and the sink was entirely devoid of unwashed plates. Best of all, I was not awoken at 3 o'clock each morning by large, drunk crowds returning from town.

In that couple of weeks, I was the youngest person in my house. Then, in one quick afternoon, I suddenly found myself a senior resident, looking after sixteen fresh-faced, fresh-fragranced, fresh-from-school Freshers. Help! I'm old!

It is amazing how much has changed in the last three years, since I first arrived here. The parents are still the same, of course; they still have the same ability to embarrass their offspring in front of their new housemates with tearful farewells - something I was spared when I arrived, but in which most parents seem to indulge. In fact, most of the Freshers themselves I recognise, in one respect or another, from my first year: there are the same characteristics, the same faces even - only the names are different.

What has changed, though, in the last few years, is the level of maturity of the new students. When I arrived, I was nervous, I felt vulnerable, and I thought it would be difficult to make friends - although I like to think that I gave it a good shot, and faced my fears with a brave face.

These days, though, first years seem more worldly-wise. They arrive with their mobile phones (still comparatively rare in my day) and are therefore in contact with their other friends back home from before the moment they arrive. This seems to give them confidence, as well as making it easy for them to meet up with other friends who have come to this university.

When I first arrived, I spent most of the first couple of weeks in a computer lab, surfing the Web. This is not as unsociable as it sounds, because my housemates would trek over to Austin Pearce en masse for a surfing session. It sounds bizarre now, but none of us had ever used the web before, and none of us had had access to e-mail. It was a new and exciting experience for us, particularly chatrooms, which, sadly, have since been banned by UCS. Now virtually everyone has their own home e-mail address, and they are not so much bored by the Web as completely indifferent. They are familiar with what it is and what it can do, so there is no novelty to be found there.

The other main difference that I have noticed with this year's intake is that, particularly with the girls, they are nearly all attached. It was not like that a few years ago - most people came to university without a boyfriend or girlfriend, and many had never had one. Most of those that did felt the strain of being apart and very quickly broke up. As Big Sister said in last week's BF, whether this lot remain faithful over the course of their studies remains to be seen.

What is starting to worry me is that all these young things are now so mature that they are on more or less the same plane of adulthood as my contemporaries. They have the same tastes and senses of humour as myself. You might think that this would make us gel closer as a household but in fact I find myself wondering whether I should be joining the Mature Students’ Association, because the only difference between us is that I am three years older (plus I know where all the best pubs in Guildford are).

Students in general are getting more and more serious, and with good reason. They are spending longer studying because they simply cannot afford to fail their exams. While Andy Gale's article in the last BF made for entertaining reading, I would say that the days of students being practical jokers are nearly over. (I'm not referring to drunken acts of vandalism here.) Clubs and societies at the university have noticed a drop in numbers over the last few years, too: some formerly popular societies were conspicuously absent from Freshers’ Festival. More and more students are working flat out all week, possibly supplementing their studies with a paid job to generate a bit of extra cashflow, and at the end of the week, they are more willing to blow the lot on one night out at the Union rather than getting involved in something that takes time and regular commitment. There are notable exceptions, of course, but in the main, students just aren't having as much fun as they used to, or as they ought to.

I'm not old, I'm younger than this lot, and Andy (a postgraduate) is the youngest of all. Good for him.