Assuming you got the grades you needed, or alternatively managed to get a place through clearing, clearing the hurdle of A Level results last week will probably now mean your thoughts are fully on starting university in the next month or so. Yep, you’ll already be looking eagerly at what fresher’s week options there are and what societies you can join; and perhaps you’ll also be getting to know a few of your fellow freshers through Facebook.

But in among all the exciting flyers for freshers’ week and important-looking info on registration that your university will have mailed to your home, there may also have been some pre-course preparation stuff prepared by your department.

You may have looked at it and, after a long and blissful summer of relaxing, decided to turn a blind eye to it. After all, surely everyone else will be doing the same thing? And won’t there be plenty of time for studying once term starts.

Well, without wanting to play the role of the nagging, nerdy side of your conscience, we’d humbly suggest that there may in fact be some merit in getting stuck into the pre-course preparation materials you’ve been sent.

Our attempt to sell you this is not based around the very obvious argument that it will enhance your performance on your first year of your course, allowing you to breeze through it while others struggle to grapple with the complexities of what’s thrown at them. Oh no. Our argument to put some effort into the pre-course preparation is the implication of what that enhanced performance will mean: that you’ll have more free time to enjoy the social side of university and all the great extracurricular experiences it has to offer.

Imagine it: instead of spending hours in the evenings grappling with essay questions you don’t understand, you’ll be out making new friends and sampling the very best of student life.

Essentially, if we were you we’d see that pre-course preparation as time spent doing work now that you won’t have to do once you actually start university, a time when the temptations not to study will be far greater than they are in this final month of living at home with your parents in the town where you grew up.

So pick up that pre-course preparation pack now and get reading!