Sport

You join things so a team can count on you. A sports club gives you training twice a week, a match at the weekend and a reason to turn up in the rain, and that is exactly the kind of commitment you like.

You are energetic, competitive and loyal. You like a muddy Sunday and a cold Wednesday training session, especially the wet weeks, when only the real team turns up. You like a clear goal and the feeling of working hard with other people to reach it. A sports club gives you structure, fitness and a ready-made group of friends, and it gives you a reason to get out of bed on the grey mornings.

You sign up at the freshers' fair and go to the taster session the same week. Maybe it is the sport you have always played, maybe something completely new, like rowing or ultimate frisbee.

By week three you are training twice a week and know the drills. Your first match comes quickly, and you are nervous, then brilliant, then sore for two days. There is a social every Wednesday, a fancy dress night and a coach trip to an away game with a lot of singing. By the end of term you are part of the team, your kit is permanently muddy, and you have a group of friends who have seen you at your most competitive and your most ridiculous.

Loud, loyal, energetic people who live for a match and a social. The group chat is training times, who is bringing the crates and photos from Wednesday night.

Your sports friends are a team, on and off the pitch. You will train together, travel together and celebrate and commiserate together. They push you to be better and pick you up when you lose. You will share houses, holidays and in-jokes that nobody else understands. Some will be friends for life, and you will still be meeting for an alumni match or a reunion years after graduation, slightly slower but just as competitive.

How to work as a team, where everyone has a role and everyone matters. How to keep going when you are tired, losing or soaked. How to win with grace and lose with dignity.

Sport teaches discipline, resilience and leadership. You learn to manage your time, because training and study both need it. You learn to take feedback from a coach and to give it to teammates. These skills show up everywhere: in interviews, in high-pressure jobs and in every team you will ever work in. Employers love a former captain. You leave university fit, focused and knowing how to pull a team together.

Turn up to every session in the first term, especially the wet ones. That is where team spirit is built, and the coaches notice.

Try a new sport if you are curious; university is the best time to start something. Take on a committee role in your second year: social secretary, kit officer, captain. Plan your study around matches so exams do not catch you out. Rest properly, with sleep, stretching and a day off a week. Then bring friends along to the social, even if they do not play. Sport at its best is about community, effort and joy. Keep turning up.