Your Union

Phew! As I mentioned last time, things really are starting to heat up in my course as I delve into third year and assignment deadlines, not to mention project milestones, continue to pile up. This, combined with the arrival next week of a show I’ve been co-directing for the past few months, Equus (more on this in my next post!), at the Annex Theatre, means it’s all systems go at present, with breaks few and far between!

These days seem to routinely consist of getting up, scampering my way to morning lectures (I like my sleep!), filling in any gaps in my timetable with researching topics, undertaking coursework assignments, attending group meetings or tackling other commitments (which, by hook or by crook, I’m somehow still adhering to!), before heading on over to rehearsals or production meetings in the evenings – and then the cycle repeats. There’s definitely no rest for the wicked at the moment!

So any downtime I come across is greatly appreciated, and usually permits me to indulge in a spot of power-napping (a skill I’d never previously practised before coming to University, but one which I now couldn’t do without!) at home or to take the rare opportunity to blow off some steam by chilling out with friends and housemates.

And one of my favourite places to do just that is the Students’ Union (affectionately known as ‘SUSU’) and its buildings on Highfield Campus, where facilities and activities (and some might say distractions!) aplenty are on offer in many various forms, be they sports halls and courts, bars, the “Union Films” cinema (which also doubles as a nightclub on Fridays), cafes, a shop, the infamous “Stag’s Head” pub (many a happy hour spent there!), media (including radio and television) studios and countless underground networks of tunnels (always making for an entertaining wander when you’re lost!), making it the perfect site for some rest, relaxation and recreation.

There’s always something happening in and around the building to make your day a little more interesting, so I often find myself hanging about there just to see what’s new; for example, every Monday, you’ll find on the ‘redbrick’ area a wonderfully well-stocked and varied marketplace, packed full of stalls selling assortments of goods which are ideal for your fresh fruit and vegetable needs (or, indeed, those of baked goods!), and there’s seemingly always companies handing out freebies (buying a pen is somewhat of a rarity!) or great deals to passers-by, such as discounts on newspapers, stationery – and takeaways!

Indeed, just this past week I bumped into a promotional event I hadn’t quite expected to see on the ‘concourse’ (the area just inside the building) when, on one particularly busy morning, I popped into the building for a quick cup of coffee – scores of the latest games consoles with free playable demos, which kept me and some friends entertained for a fair while!

Needless to say, with the opportunity to try out one of the latest game consoles on offer, the need for coffee was quickly offset!

And it’s this constant buzz of positivity, this never-ending hive of activity, with its members at its heart, that makes SUSU such a great place to be around. You soon find that, regardless of what course you study or which societies you join, everybody seems to know everybody else at Uni, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to bump into several friends wherever you go there, be they studying in the pods, grabbing a bite to eat in the trendy Bridge Bar (recently renovated, and highly recommended by myself!), watching the footy in the Stag’s or relaxing with a film in the evening.

It’s all designed with the student body in mind, which means that, aside from offering cheap prices abound (a trip to Union Films is just like the real thing, only for a fraction of the cost), it’s always open for you to book out its services (often for free) for your own purposes, be it for something as grand as a whole society event, or just when you fancy a couple of games of squash with friends.

This definitely came in handy for a few of us the other night, when, needing to shoot a trailer for Equus to further our marketing push (which is also soon to take to Surge Radio, the Union’s own broadcasters), we were able to use the filming equipment and studio of the Union’s television station, SUSUtv, at no charge, and with the added bonus of having the extremely helpful assistance of one of its experienced committee members, Anjit, on side – thanks to him, the final product should be suitably atmospheric, and hopefully sell a few tickets too!

The availability of an underground TV studio allowed us to shoot a creepily eerie Equus trailer – soon to appear on SUSUtv!

So if you’ve not managed to make it in so far, I can only recommend visiting the Union as soon, and as often, as possible! Why not check out all the things on offer or, better still, get involved with the societies that run them? By allowing its members to assume positions of responsibility within the organisation that makes it up, SUSU not only grants us experience in roles of leadership (into which there are many people elected each year), but also gives the opportunity to influence changes, decisions and strategies for each other’s benefit and to reflect a common consensus, meaning more great perks to studying in Southampton for you, me and the rest of the student body, and for that reason alone it’s more than worth engaging with.

At the end of the day, it is YOUR Union, after all!

Robin

Making a home from home

It’s two weeks into the new term, and already the landmarks are flying in fast!

Aside from the looming prospect of getting into the real meat of a challenging Third Year Project, which I discussed in my last post, there’s also groups to be formed for term-long projects, schedules to be organised for meetings with supervisors and course committees, and assignments (or more intimidatingly their deadlines!) being thrown at us left, right and centre. Although we were, to an extent at least, protected from all of this by the way the course was structured in our first and second years, in third year there is no such alleviation – it’s very much sink or swim, with appropriate time management an absolute expectation of us (quite fairly at this point I guess!).

Add to that an extra-curricular activity which is almost single-handedly eating up any spare time I ever manage to get hold of, being a co-director of an ambitious production of Peter Shaffer’s classic play Equus (two weeks until opening night – ahhhhh!), and the occasional summons to events such as birthday parties, sound staging training sessions, committee meetings, academic talks and, rather inevitably, auditions for next term (I’ve managed to get into a musical somehow, and am now panicking that people are going to hear me outside of a shower!), and there’s ever aplenty to be getting on with each day!

But it’s one of those senses that, when I’m at my Northern home or any other break from life at Southampton, I miss at times; that feeling that there’s something important to do, somewhere vital to be, something significant you’ve forgotten to do (always the case with me – I find it worrying if I’m not worried about something!), that means that, no matter however fatigued or otherwise you may be, every day is full of purpose, goals and a good sense of achievement – in theory!

On the flip side, I wouldn’t say no to a more regular sleeping pattern from time to time!

The way I see it, however, is that I’ll probably never get too clear an opportunity to do much of this again after I’ve graduated in a couple of years (an occasion which seems far too close for comfort at this point!) because the focus will be on making my way up the ladder of employment, so while I can, why not?

And I reckon that it’s keeping myself so busy, immersing myself in all the fruitful opportunities that Southampton has to offer and, in turn, engaging with a broad variety of interesting and fun people wherever I go, that makes the city such a homely place for me. It’s been that way ever since Freshers’ week two years ago, when I attended five or six societies’ welcome meetings (a number which has since whittled down to one or two!), and I’ve just kept going along to things ever since, meeting more and more people and settling into the ranks of passionate folk that make up the Students’ Union, SUSU.

The people you meet can define your University experience – 

so try to get out there and meet them!

I can recall my first few weeks being full of unsure moments and frequent doubts; as one of my friends phrased it, moving away from home initially felt like an extended school trip, with the sense that we’d all be back in a classroom the following Monday. But being a relatively old hat at starting academic years now, and with a settled set of friends, contacts and societies (although it seems to ever be expanding, such is the fluid social nature of the Students’ Union!) to rely on, it’s sometimes easy to take for granted the most important factor in helping me adapt to independent life and study in the first place: my flatmates (and current housemates)!

Because (and I sincerely hope they’re not reading this) when you’re surrounded by such a welcoming, zany and hilarious bunch as I was in my Montefiore halls of residence, it begins to feel like a second family. After only three or four weeks of living with one another, we already had in-jokes aplenty (just ask them why they gave me the nickname “Mufasa” because I don’t know!), great rapport, loads of stories and, in a nice way, firm groundings and roles within the group; we knew who to go to for a moan when the chips were down, and who’d select the best film for picking ourselves back up again, or be aware of the cheapest place to go out that night for a celebration (although now we dispute this fervently!). I can’t thank them enough for the times they’ve supported me, and I can only hope I’ve returned the favour, or will do.

There’s nobody better to have a laugh with after a tricky day than your housemates.

And you’ll soon find there’s nothing better for getting to know somebody than living with them!

And it’s this curious feeling of place, of belonging, which I loved having amidst the adaptations I underwent during freshers’; my flatmates and I were ultimately a hugely diverse bunch with a range of personalities, hailing from vastly different backgrounds and areas of the country, but it just worked in halls, and it still does in our privately rented student house, as we enter a third year living together. This point was rammed home when we recently had a nostalgic viewing of all our first year photographs and videos, which started by reinforcing just how lucky we were to be put together in the first place, and ended in, typically, a house fight using foam dart guns and a bottle of somebody’s skin cream...

 ... which didn’t work out too well for me, as you can see!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always turn out quite as conveniently for everybody, and if you find that, after trying to make it work with your current flat/housemates, things aren’t working as well as you’d hoped they might (sometimes they just don’t click, and it’s nobody’s fault), I’d recommend getting out there, joining plenty of societies and using them as a medium through which to meet people with more similar interests. They all tend to be incredibly welcoming, and it’s a great way to go into conversations with complete strangers knowing you’ve got at least one interest in common to talk about!

It doesn’t really matter where you find them because, for me at least, be they computer scientists, Performing Arts members or my housemates, it’s the people that I encounter in Southampton who make it my home from home.  

Robin

The long haul

I’m currently sitting at my desk, staring at a blinking cursor on a blank document, which currently represents the state of progress of my preparation of a project brief document for my Third Year Project, the year-long piece of work that I know will pose many conundrums to come.

Talk about standing at the foot of a mountain!

I’ve done something fairly similar before, for my A Level Computing coursework, where we had a nine-month stretch of time to develop a piece of software for a real-world application. Somehow, I managed to convince both my teachers and the exam board that programming a KenKen solving game (a kind of mathematical Sudoku) would be a good example of an educational utility (for improving arithmetic), and I was away staring at number grids for hours on end, but back then I had the firm guidance of a classroom teacher behind me on a daily basis, helping me overcome all the little errors and difficulties that such a large-scale project can throw up and forcing me to get down to the grit of what was a relatively simple task, at least technically, but was certainly tough at the time! And I ended up typing over 200 pages’ worth of report, which required a Herculean effort to print off and bind on submission day!

But the Third Year Project is a whole other kettle of fish, because although I have the firm support and help of weekly meetings with my personal supervisor, whose experience in and knowledge of the field I’ve already found invaluable in helping me to find areas in which to kick-start my project, the onus is very much on me to have the drive to drag myself out of bed (however comfortable it seems at the time – especially if it’s 8am!), get to the library to check out journals or labs to investigate topics, and stand on the shoulders of giants in applying my findings to the construction of an artefact, which I have to present for scrutiny at the end of the year in my project viva. And that’s while simultaneously writing 10,000 words on the experience!

So writing this blog at the very beginning of what seems like an ever-stretching path before me, having just been given a lecture on solid techniques for mapping out the time available in the months to follow, the prospect of taking on a Third Year Project is more than a little intimidating!

But already I’m finding that my previous experiences at the University of Southampton may well help me in tackling just that, both in terms of those gained from course modules (for example, over my first two years we’ve been introduced to a broad range of project management and design methodologies) and also those through my extra-curricular activities.

Because although it’s an activity which I participate in mostly because I enjoy it rather than because of any great benefit to my CV, learning how to direct a theatrical production through putting on my latest project with Theatre Group, Equus, has already seen us, as a production team, put a lot of management theory into action. For example, before the concept of the show was even formed, we established a core team for putting it on, who then branched outwards and delegated the responsibilities needed for building up a society show from scratch – and there’s a surprising number, as I’m finding out now while we all race around gathering props and costumes and sponsorship and such!

I’ve also had to learn how to schedule, particularly in piecing together a rehearsal schedule which defines the whole process of learning the play – although on one particular day I did cheekily take the liberty of making the rehearsal start and finish early enough for me to watch a Manchester United match! We’re now halfway through it, and things seem to be going very well indeed thanks to the commitment and talent of all involved (as well as their ability to make the whole thing a lot of fun!), although being on a short timescale it’s not always straightforward to tell; there may be some last minute line-learning or changing of scenes, as with any production, but fingers crossed we’ll avoid that scenario!

On top of that, we’ve been working closely as a production team to try and co-ordinate all of our activities to make sure everything comes together on time (helped again by everybody’s sheer enthusiasm and commitment to putting on a great show!), to market the show (you may see our poster on screens in and around the Students’ Union!) and to try and remain relatively within the budget we set out at the beginning – basically, many of the skills applied in a long-term project!

It sounds like a lot of work, and it’s not always easy as such, but it’s made all the better by being around such driven, personable and canny individuals as those which comprise Theatre Group.

In addition, taking on projects can give you great excuses to take much-needed breaks every now and then, which can be all the more satisfying for their timing! This previous weekend the cast and crew of Equus attended a riding school in Buckinghamshire, where we were given the opportunity to learn from, groom and ride horses, an awesome experience which made for a fun day out as a team. We’d like to thank Mrs Hart massively for making it all possible and lending us her time, knowledge and horses on the day!

 Some of us had ridden before and some hadn’t – with interesting results!

(Credit: Leo Darlington)

 We had a great time at the stables!

(Credit: Leo Darlington)

So it is with great optimism that I go into the new academic year, armed with an as-of-yet-unwritten proposition to take on the challenge of building an autonomous agent capable of live performance capture and editing, despite the numerous difficulties that are almost guaranteed to crop up because of it – and this time, I’m not sure turning it off and on again will solve very much!

Although it might mean fewer hours in bed (and those of you who know me well will know how much that promises to hurt!), this year I’ll be in it for the long haul, although given how I’ll be researching an area I’m interested in through a project I selected, I’m sure that this will just give me all the more time to relish my course during my penultimate year here.

And at the end of Equus, the Third Year Project and the rest of my degree, I’m sure I’ll have a complete product to look back on, to be proud of, and to savour.

Robin