Rosalyn also illustrates the way in which students provide support for each other. She
spoke about birthdays and how in those first few weeks when the students realized
people had a birthday they would make a point of buying a cake and generally making a
fuss of them as they had no family to do that for them. There was much talk of “looking
out for your flatmates” – an assumption that people would find certain things hard and it
was important to be there for them. Rosalyn talked about staying up all night with a friend
whose long-term relationship from back home had become a casualty of the move away
to university. “Well you have to, don’t you? We’re all in this together” she said.