John O'Keeffe on how to adjust to life at third level

It's cold and wet, the evenings are short and mum and dad just don't understand. Technically you're still a teenager and next September seems a long way off.

Ask not what you can do for your college but what your college can do for you. This shall be your clarion call as you spend the next three to four years bathing in the elixir of life and self-indulgence. So what can you expect during your time at college - a time that your parents say are the best years of your life and the worst of theirs?

Those of you who chose an arts degree will be told by students in higher points courses that they're a waste of time. You will laugh as they miss the point and tell your aunt Mary at Christmas that you are "reading French civilisation". She will nod politely but wonder if you'll ever have a mortgage.

Arts students will be told by their dean that their courses are the only true measure of any individual's intellect and that excelling in medicine or law is a bit like getting a first in woodwork at Eton - interesting but pointless. Those studying any form of tourism, horticulture, marketing, engineering, commerce, business, veterinary or medicine will be too busy to have time to think about other courses as they lift themselves up the ladder that is student, and ultimately, professional success.

Whatever course you decide to do, you will spend the first term clinging to any old school friend you can isolate. NUI colleges, TCD, institutes of technologies or private colleges - you name it, even the smallest of them is enough to send shivers down the spine of the coolest Celtic cub. Second and third terms will be spent trying to shake them off.

In the broadest sense of the word you are still angry but your parents now appear more like an irritating lunch ticket than the purveyors of intellectual, moral and social genocide they seemed in your middle teens. If you're not careful, you may even like them.

Whatever your chosen course, in your first term you will join 11 societies. You will wonder at the precociousness of the students who man these stalls and ask yourself if you will ever fit in with those types.

Fear not, you will be there next year with your bottle of alcopops in one hand and your rag mag in the other. You will also believe that every lecturer from every university in the UK has decamped to Ireland. All academic staff will speak with an "accent" and those who don't will probably be dumbing down for effect.

You will fall in and out of love, you will become angry about injustice and you may even go on a rally or two. You will wonder why everyone in the world is not at college and look at people who work as either parents, or demented, or both. Getting in, rather than getting up in the morning, will become the norm so that your body clock believes it inhabits a large bat with an unnatural fondness for drink.

Your time at college will be the most privileged time and hopefully the happiest of your life. It may even train you to read, build houses or fix people when they're sick.

It will not, however, mend a broken heart. Nor will it necessarily bring financial reward, be fulfilling, or make you happy. It will not make you friends. If college does make you feel good about yourself and secure you employment, then bravo. If that's all that makes you feel good, then it may well be time for some reflection. In the final analysis, however, a third-level education never harmed anyone - provided that they were willing to learn a little something after they graduated.

John O'Keeffe is head of the law school at Portobello College, Dublin, and can be contacted at jok@iol.ie