It’s eerily quiet now, as I go about my twelfth week at Warwick, living in student halls. It certainly isn’t usually like this; my flat is one of the fun ones. A flat where we’ll eat dinner together, argue about who drank who’s milk and debate the pointlessness of studying anything that isn’t Maths.
We share one toilet between eleven, have half a shelf in the fridge each and are three chairs short in the kitchen. My parents think that my accommodation is a dive, but it’s our dive. And we love it.
The point that I am trying to make, perhaps clumsily, is that I really like the people I live with and the halls in which we reside.
It would, however, be disingenuous of me to suggest that my experience at university has been perfect thus far. It just hasn’t been. So my plan for this blog is as follows: I will trace my story back to the weeks preceeding the start of my life at Warwick, before reflecting upon what life’s been like since.
UCAS Track had opened early. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh, throw up or speed down the A127 so I could see my results sooner.
I don’t believe anyone in the history of sitting exams has looked back on results day and said “yeh, that was fun”. Results day was, is and will always be, a perilous experience that left me sleep deprived and as a bit of an emotional wreck. My house was about 25 minutes away from my sixth form, and I decided to drive in with my girlfriend that morning. My beautiful, and now squished, 2003 Ford KA was plodding its way to Brentwood fairly peacefully until it was discovered that UCAS Track had opened early.
I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh, throw up or speed down the A127 so I could see my results sooner. In truth, I probably went with a mixture of options one and three – but that’s not important! After an emotional rollercoster ride of a drive, we made it to sixth form opened our results and promptly headed to ‘Spoons for breakfast.
Mercifully, the hard work had paid-off. I’d made it into my first choice university and would never have to think about the Wife of Bath, nor her tales, ever again.
The great drying rack debate of 2018…
With my place at Warwick now secured, it was about time that I went out and bought some adult-y things so I would be able to survive on my own. This sparked what could only be deemed to be the great drying rack debate of 2018 among my family. Would I need a drying wrack in my room, perhaps I should take a toaster, or maybe my own microwave?
In fairness, my family are new to the whole concept of university – but I did eventually win the debate, I’d need a colander and a saucepan; everything else I could live without.
Moving in day was a fractious affair, I felt as though I was being pulled in every direction besides from the one I actually wanted to be heading in and by the end of the day I just wanted to lock myself in my room with a massive bowl of pesto pasta and do studenty things.
I’m glad I didn’t do that, I went clubbing instead – an odd decision considering that I hate overly loud music, drinking and most drunk people. Aren’t I a hoot?
The first week at Warwick seemed to be over as quickly as it had started, there were tours, there were socials and there were drinking games (that I wilfully spectated). It struck me at quite an early stage that I felt at home at Warwick, perhaps it’s because I’m finally able to fend for myself – but it’s probably because I’m surrounded by nice, level-headed people and we all get on.
My only criticism of Welcome Week (and you will have to get used to my nerdyness because it will be a theme of my blogs) is that we didn’t really do any work. I’ll likely write posts about tuition fees and that kind of thing at a later date, but I just felt a bit short-changed that I’d turned up at uni, worked so hard to get in and then spent the first week not doing too much in the way of academia.
My complaints, however, remain short-lived because my workload began to stack-up rather quickly. The nature of PAIS is that you get very few contact hours, but a mountain of reading to compensate for this.
I love my subject and I love my department, but PAIS is a lonely pursuit. The vast majority of my time is taken up with independent study: reading, reading, researching and more reading. I’m not complaining, because I knew what I signed up for, but the study of politics – certainly in the first year – is dominated by theory and a lot of the time feels so abstracted that it doesn’t apply to the real world.
My hands are in the air, I wholeheartedly admit that I am an absolute novice when it comes to university. When choosing my additional modules I was naive enough to pick two that fall in the second term, a decision that will almost double my workload as we push through the start of 2019. I haven’t made life easy for myself, but I hope to find solace in the fact that I did chose the two most interesting modules (on comparative politics and international security, for those of you wondering).
I am obsessively organised: my notepad has its designated place on my desk.
By the time essay writing season had arrived I was now well-versed in getting too and from Coventry to meet up with Alivia. We’ve explored IKEA, frequented the Cosy Club and have become regulars at Blaze matches. Coventry gets a lot of flak, but there’s loads to do and it’s easy to get to and from London – so I can’t really complain.
More recently, my time has been spent writing essays – a pursuit I still feel ill-prepared for. For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am obsessively organised: my notepad has its designated place on my desk and it upsets me a little bit if I haven’t planned out my day beforehand. Suffice to say; submitting my essays on time wasn’t an issue for me, having confidence in what I have written is, however, troublesome.
We did get a fair amount of guidance on essays before our reading week, most of which was delivered by our DSEP in a lecture. But no amount of guidance would fill me with confidence on this one. I guess it comes with the territory?
I’m a journalist now?
You might be wondering why my halls have now fallen silent? Well, it’s because we’ve entered the Christmas break and practically everyone has gone home. Only two of us survived the festive culling, myself and another guy from my flat who is waiting on his flight back to snowier, European climes.
I should point out that the only reason I’m still here is so I can travel back to the London/Essex heartlands with my girlfriend – Coventry break-up for the holidays a week after Warwick, annoyingly.
Christmas moving out day, for that reason was a strange experience. With everyone around me packing their bags and heading for the station, I wasn’t too sure what to do with myself. Watch Friends? Play FIFA? Pester my girlfriend? My options seemed limited.
It was, however, at this point that the true charm of university life reared its head once more. Just an hour and a half before kick-off, the Sports Editor for The Boar put out a call for someone to cover the Wasps-Toulouse Champions Cup clash at the Ricoh Arena. I know nothing about rugby, nor Wasps, nor Toulouse. But guess who ended up reporting on the game anyway?
University isn’t perfect. It’s stressful, scary and expensive – but it’s also a breeding ground for spontaneity, making friends and being yourself. Eleven weeks into life at university and apparently I’m a journalist now? It’s been a bumpy ride, I had no idea what to expect and I still have no idea what’s to come.
Either way, thank you for reading my first blog – I’ve got more heading your way soon!
First Forum 