Join university — first year initially (5)
I believe the answer is:
unify
'join' is the definition.
(unifying is a kind of joining)
'university first year initially' is the wordplay.
'university' becomes 'uni' (I've seen this in other clues**).
'initially' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letters of 'first year' is 'fy'.
'uni'+'fy'='UNIFY'
(Other definitions for unify that I've seen before include "Federate" , "Put together" , "Consolidate" , "Form into a single group" , "Get together" .)