Getting you up to speed…

Hi everyone! My name is Kristin Vestermark and I’m a second year Biology undergraduate at the University of Southampton. I’m super excited to join the blogging team and I hope I can give you all a good insight into my fulfilling life here at Southampton. 

Where should I begin? It’s been over a year since I moved to the UK (on my own), from Linköping, Sweden to begin the exciting and rewarding adventure of studying a degree at university. However life at university has been so much more than purely what my degree programme has had to offer. Here’s some of the many memorable and gratifying experiences I’ve had so far.

The first one being, living in halls… This was the perfect place for me adjust to UK culture, transition into a more independent lifestyle and a fantastic way to meet a huge variety of interesting people from varied degree programmes. I happened to share a kitchen with 20 other people, which may seem somewhat shocking but looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I met two of the four awesome people I now share a house with while in halls, and seeing as we each study different degree programmes and are a part of different societies, it’s unlikely I would have been lucky enough to meet them if I had not lived with them in my first year.

Some of the twenty people I lived with last year

Speaking of the different societies here at Southampton, I can’t not fill you in on my love of dance! I’m currently a member of the jazz dance, ballet, contemporary and street dance societies as well as being on the university squads for three of them. I got totally hooked in my first year and as a way of getting even more involved, I’ve taken on the role of being the president of the Jazz dance society, now in my second year. I’m hoping to contribute to another incredible year of dance performances, competitions and terrific socials!

Me with the advanced jazz dance squad, at the annual Loughborough dance competition last year

Me and some of last year’s contemporary squad – taken before heading to the stage during the annual Pure Dance show, which includes performances from all of the ten different dance societies at Southampton

As you’re likely to realise as you follow me through the year, I have an endless amount of interests. As if dancing six days a week wasn’t enough, I also joined the Southampton University Scuba-aqua Club last year. It was thanks to the lovely and dedicated members of the society that I was able to get my ocean diver qualifications. This is something I’m really proud of and I’m looking forward to getting more dive experience and hopefully building on my qualifications in the future.

Now that I’m in my second year, my course has become increasingly demanding and the pressure to do well is constantly in the back of my mind (knowing that what I achieve this year will count directly towards my degree). However, I’m extremely lucky to be studying something I’m truly fascinated about and in fact, the more work I do related to my course, the more I realise I have made the right choice to study Biology at university. The only problem is that, as with all aspects of my life, I seem to have too many areas of interests and I’m finding it difficult to decide on an area of Biology on which I might want to focus in the future. I’m hoping this will become clearer as the year progresses.

So, you should now be somewhat up to speed with who I am and what I’ve been up to over the past year… This year is going to be a total juggling act but I’m absolutely loving everything that I’m doing and everything that I’m involved in, so I guess I’m just going to have to learn to juggle!

Kristin