“When University really begins”

Throughout the course of my Fresher year at Southampton I frequently heard the words “You only need 40%!” from some of the students further into their degree programmes.

This was in reference to the degree classification structure which means, in your first year, you only have to pass your modules to advance to your second; your marks don’t count towards your final result, in other words (although some schools, such as ECS, award scholarships based on them). This allows you a bit of time to properly adapt to a student lifestyle and working system (time which, personally, I'm grateful to have had), an experience which I wrote about in my last blog – but you do always have to bear in mind that you get out what you put in!

Another saying I often encountered was “Second year is when University really begins” - usually quoted by my parents or older students to drive home the point that my results, this year, actually count towards a fifth (as I'm on a four year programme) of the overall classification. Accordingly, at the beginning of the year I set myself the target of getting my head down and tackling the books more often than I achieved last year.

So two weeks into the new University semester, and as I’ve made the transition from first to second year, what’s changed about life in Southampton?

Lectures

Naturally, the most salient difference I’ve noted has been in studying for my course. As I previously mentioned, although it's important to attend as many lectures, tutorials and labs as possible, sometimes the occasional absence is completely unavoidable – Freshers' flu can be horribly potent, and it doesn’t just hit first year students! Nevertheless, I can already see after the first two weeks of the semester that engaging with topics during lecture time will be critical to success this year, particularly as the difficulty of module content seems to have stepped up considerably, with prior knowledge of topics covered last year assumed – hence why it’s a good idea to absorb the concepts at the first time of asking!

A couple of occasions this year already, when pre-reading lecture notes, I've found myself flummoxed by a wall of Greek letters and intimidating formal notations. In spite of fearing the worst – falling behind – before the sessions began, upon attending them I’ve managed to grasp the notes’ meanings and concepts, largely due to the measured and informative explanations my lecturers have delivered. The step-up from first to second year implied that if I hadn’t gone along, I’d have been completely stuck – after all, “the set of all Q states” means more to me than “alpha maps Q times Sigma to 2 to the power of Q” and the like!

There’s no substitute for a good old-fashioned plain English explanation from lectures – my notes are littered with them!

On the flip side, I haven’t found concentration too much of an issue so far; with course content as demanding as it is, and multiple coursework assignments lurking around the corner, there’s no time to drift off!

Getting places

A further difference in the second year lifestyle is the change of mode of transport I use. Whereas in Halls of Residence you’re entitled to a free pass for the uni-link bus system, which can whisk you to campus rapidly, location has, in my circumstances at least, dictated that walking would be more economical. Adapting to life in the student house over the past month has seen me learn the quickest routes and according journey times to buildings across campus, usually for use in occasions when I’m late off the mark in the morning – and I’ve had to buy an umbrella!

But although there’s still the occasional grumble whenever I find myself trudging through the rain and see a packed bus of dry people, I guess there’re also a number of advantages to walking everywhere, aside from the obvious health benefits. Not only have I learnt the location of a number of nearby shops and services, I’ve realised just how walkable everything in Southampton really is: everything I could need is within a twenty minute radius at the most.

Furthermore, it’s great to often meet fellow students and friends in the streets encompassing the University. I’ve experienced a great sense of community around the city, and it’s a nice change from perhaps the more enclosed (but wonderfully provident) world of halls.

And as a result of having to be more economical with trips to and from my house, I’ve spent a larger quantity of time on campus, where I’m often seen in the numerous on-site catering facilities and ECS Zepler computer labs – a much less distracting place to get my head in some books!

Practising the domestic arts

Whereas last year I spent a great deal of time getting acclimatised to domestic and financial self-maintenance, the experience of doing so has helped so far this semester in many ways, be it saving on bills or having an idea of where to purchase certain items cheapest.  I now mentally compare the prices of everything when I see them, or I’ll calculate their cost in terms of hours of part-time work!

I hope to write about my shopping and cooking tips in the near future (which should greatly entertain my housemates, if nothing else!), but suffice to say I think I’ve retained most of the skills I picked up over the course of first year...

...oops!

... including the ability to forget about putting food in the oven!

But it's still the same great So’ton

I write this a month to the day after moving back down here, and just as my first year seemed to pass in a blur, I’m absolutely perplexed by the rate at which the previous four weeks have gone by. Despite being another year older (although regularly none the wiser!), and despite the changes between first and second year – greater challenges, greater responsibilities, but also greater opportunities – Southampton is still the playground I’m privileged to reside in.

So to quote another cliché, “time flies when you’re having fun”. It’s no wonder how quickly the spell has gone, as I’ve enjoyed acting rehearsals, course lectures, group socials, SUSUtv meetings, Theatre Group workshops, meeting a plethora of new faces, auditions and, recently, the hilarious workshops of the Comedy Society – hopefully with the end result of attempting a bit of stand-up soon enough! And, hugely excitingly, I’ve been massively fortunate to be cast in Showstoppers’ (the musical theatre society’s) main show, Parade, to be performed in the amazing Nuffield Theatre in March – it’s going to be an experience to cherish!

The year is rich in promise already and, if this is when University “really begins”, I can’t wait to see where it ends up!

Robin

I can change the world

So, many of you will have been at uni for a week now and everything will be getting a little easier – if you’re a fresher you’ll know the difference between the U1A and the U1C, if you’re a second year you’ll still be enjoying several nights out a week, and if you’re in any higher year you’ll have already selected your seat in the library which will remain yours for the rest of year (floor three, by the tree, just saying...).

Regardless, I think for everyone it’s starting to feel natural, like we never left. And like I said, we’re all starting to settle into our routines and this year I did not want to trudge along doing what I always did. This year I joined the University’s global health society, Medsin; a ridiculously interesting society which hosts amazing talks by a number of inspirational people in the field of development, poverty elevation and of course, health equality.  Earlier this week I went to the first one of their talks, it was called How students can change the world.

Within 40 minutes my preconceptions and estimations were blown, I was listening, enraptured, to this guy who had been at Southampton, my very university, only last year. His name was Danny Hutley, and he was changing the world. There were several reasons why this presentation was so impressive:

1.) The things being said were momentous
2.) The technological design of it was very clever, and as a bit of a technophobe I was in awe, and
3.) Honestly Danny was just an enthusiastic good guy and somehow the culmination of all this was mesmerising.
He graduated as a doctor, practised for a matter of months and now works for Change.org, whose mission statement follows: "Empower anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns for social change."
Pretty massive stuff.

It was great to hear about how Danny campaigned strongly enough, whilst at university, to affect the UN policy on climate change. Or how Change.org had provided a platform for Molly Katchpole, a 22 year old nanny to start a petition asking Bank of America and their CEO Bryan Moynihan to drop its unexpected new $5/month banking fee – 300,000 signatures and less than a month later, Bank of America announced the removal of the new banking fee.

Barack Obama even signed the petition!

And you think to yourself, that’s great, really super, but that would never happen to me… except it happened to Danny and he was a student, he even went to the same university as me, so if he can do it I guess I can too. Our world is changing; events like the Arab Spring are not isolated. We have power at our fingertips, the internet is a mighty tool and if we have enough passion we can tell the whole world our story.
So I wanted some more practical advice; a step-by-step guide to how I could change the world. Such intuitive assistance was given.

There were these 3 steps:
1. Open out information – blast it out there and make it accessible.
2. Establish a connection – talk about the things you’re passionate about with friends who are similarly passionate, they’ll share it with their friends and before you know it you’ll have a worldwide phenomenon.
3. Start small, start local – Don’t immediately try and infiltrate it from the top, mobilise your friends so they can mobilise their own and so on...

It seems simple right, if you care about something enough you can get it out there – the world isn’t as big a place as it used to be, I have friends on Facebook who live all over the world, if they see something my friend has told me about, and they tell their friends, we’ve instantly spread it across the globe. With figures showing a lack of trust in large companies and governments (big surprise right...) people are turning to other sources – we are the 99% and now we can get our voices heard.
This talk got me so energised, it’s refreshing and so important to remember that despite being a tiny person in a massive world we have power, we can demand change.

It was a good thing for me to try something new because guess what I learnt: I can change the world.

Florence

Southampton blackout – a new beginning

The month of October has begun with a bang with the beginning of yet another year for the students at the University, some new and full of enthusiasm and some old and seasoned. I have gone through the posts of Robin, Florence and Jo and am sure one can get the perspective of students… students who have spent just a year getting used to the Uni and the surroundings, students who have spent two long years and are ready to take the plunge into the final and deciding year and finally the students who have spent a lifetime (three years) at the Uni.

But then there are students like me who have spent just a year at the University as a masters student but did experience the zeal and vivacity of a first year Fresher in the first few months, and also the stress and apprehensions tied up with course work and group projects like a second year student setting up goals and making plans to achieve them and finally like a final year student at the Uni have gone through the lull before the storm during the dissertation phase mixed with the separation anxieties of going away from my best buddies and feelings of concern about the future. In short, a masters student goes through everything in a year that one would go through during their stay for three years at the University and that is what makes your life even more exciting, yet challenging.

Presently I am taking a much deserved break back home in India post submission of my dissertation two weeks back. I am missing all the fun and frolic back in Southampton during the welcome month. However, a break was indeed needed after the stormy month of September which comprised of hours and hours spent in front of the laptop writing and proofreading in pursuit of chasing the deadline for submission. This is also a phase of consolidation – time spent to take stock of the future course of action before you get the results of your hard work.

Going through my inbox a couple of days back, I found an email regarding the much acclaimed “Southampton Blackout” event held this April. I had participated in this event and as I read the message, my thoughts were transported back to the month of April when I had received a similar email asking for students to participate in the event. As a student of MSc Sustainable Energy Technologies in Engineering and the Environment, words like sustainability and energy efficiency were not new to me. I  applied for participation in the event and was lucky to get selected.

The event was conducted on Friday 27 April 2012 and aimed at conducting an exhaustive energy audit of the University. The exercise involved around 200 students who were divided into various groups under supervision of University staff and were allocated specific buildings. The idea behind the drive was to turn off all the unessential electrical equipment across all the buildings in the Highfield campus of the University, however taking caution not to hamper any essential work or research being conducted. After the exercise, a survey was conducted to find out the energy wasted over a weekend due to the wasteful expenditure of electricity on unessential items. This was the first of its kind of student-run drive being conducted in a University across the globe and the stakes were obviously high.

We were thoroughly briefed by Dr Simon Kemp, the brains behind the event in a packed auditorium full of students and staff who had gathered for a singular cause of sustainability in the campus. My team comprised of four other students and a staff member and we were allocated the Management Building – 54. The exercise seemed quite easy in the beginning as we entered every room and ensured all unessential electrical items were switched off and also taking note of all items left on. However, as time progressed and after a couple of hours into the exercise, we were really tired. Once we had thoroughly covered the building and cross-checked our sheets that we had compiled, and as we returned to building 7, the main HQ of the exercise, we were quite happy souls, content and proud of our contribution to this mammoth task.

Student volunteers turning off unessential electrical equipment

After a blissful treat of pizza, the students were thanked by the organisers for their wholehearted co-operation and also for ensuring that no untoward incident had occurred during the event. As for the results, they were nothing less than overwhelming. A 6% energy reduction over the weekend saved 7 tonnes of carbon and 16000 kWh of energy – enough to power 5 homes for a year and in terms of economics – a reduction of £1,600 over the weekend which would translate to £84,000 over a year.

Results of Southampton Blackout event

We even received a congratulatory email from the Vice-Chancellor on a successful Southampton Blackout event in keeping with the sustainability agenda of the University. For me personally, it was definitely a high point of my stay at the University, which I really enjoyed taking part in and which gave me an opportunity to stand up for a cause. The opportunities are a little too many – and Freshers - you just need to keep your eyes and ears open.

Rohit

Once, twice, four times a Fresher

This year's Freshers’ Week at the University of Southampton was my fourth. My fourth Bunfight, and my fourth time braving the crowds. If that didn’t make me feel old, then walking past the queue of eager first years (and second and third years, no doubt) waiting for free pizza at the Freshers’ Fayre certainly did!

My first Freshers’ week was a whirlwind of freebies, drinks, meeting people whose names you would instantly forget, and getting lost around campus. I don’t really remember much, because it went so quickly (and it was three years ago now!). This year, however, my Freshers’ week revolved around representing the Wessex Scene at the Welcome to SUSU Day, and at the Bunfight, as well as being introduced to my new course, and – once again – forgetting people’s names!

After your first Freshers’, it's not quite the same again. That’s pretty obvious really. You no longer have the adrenaline that keeps you running around meeting people and trying new things, even after a heavy night out. However, just because it’s your second, third, or fourth Freshers’ Week, it doesn't mean you can’t have fun.

1. You can do it like a pro:

One of the best things about being an older student during Freshers’ Week is that you know all the best bits already. I avoided the events that I knew wouldn't interest me, and I was able to enjoy nights out where I knew I would have a good time. I spent time meeting friends and could get on with important things without feeling like I would be missing out on trying something new.

2. You can stay in and nobody will judge you:

Another of my favourite things about Freshers’ week as a postgrad (which also applies to undergrads too!) is that you don’t have to go out if you don’t want to. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of nights out with friends, dancing badly to songs from the 90s and attempting to pull off Psy’s Gangnam Style with all the aplomb of a drunken donkey. But I do find that there is nothing nicer than a drink at The Stag's, a film and pizza night with your nearest and dearest, or a night in on your own with many episodes of How I Met Your Mother and a cup of tea. Chances are even the most hardcore nightclub fans crave a quiet night in in their onesie. Embrace the quiet night in! There’s no pressure to go out and prove yourself, or to join in for fear of being an outcast, as there may be during your first Freshers’ Week.

3. You can spend the week doing what you want:

My third favourite thing about Freshers’ Week when you’re no longer a Fresher is that, if you don’t fancy traipsing along to the Union to queue for hours for bags of vouchers, or to sign up to more societies, it's a week of fun with your closest friends or housemates until the work begins. In my second year, Freshers’ week consisted of watching films with my lovely housemates, trips to the pub, and generally catching up with people. You choose what you want to do, and there’s no pressure to attend all the events on the SUSU Calendar (even though they are pretty darn good!)

I myself had a great fourth Freshers’ Week, working with the Wessex Scene, getting ready for my new degree, and meeting with friends for lunch or coffee. Freshers’ Week is fantastic when you’re a Fresher – and it’s fantastic when you’re a fourth year (and everything in between) but for different reasons.

For any Freshers reading this, I hope you had an amazing time – I maintain that I am still thoroughly jealous! Freshers’ week was around two weeks ago now (not counting last week's events which took place with lectures, and the Freshers’ Ball on Monday) but the University is still buzzing. Next year, though it won’t quite be the same for many of you, it may prove to be just as good; or even a little bit better.

Joanne

Keep calm and carry on

Following a superb second Freshers' week – the free pizza was much appreciated it seems! – this week has seen the resumption of every student's favourite activity: attending lectures.

After four months of resting our craniums – save for the odd spot of research or work experience here and there - campus is once again aflush with undergraduates, postgraduates and lecturers rushing to and fro, seeking out elusive building numbers and theatres scattered around, or trying to beat the early morning rush to the library desks. Let the work commence!

The mountain of pizza boxes formed at the Freshers' Fayre!

From a personal standpoint, I’m pleased to be back into the lecture routine, and am relishing the prospect of getting stuck into the course this year. Reflecting on the academic side of last year, I guess I worked reasonably hard throughout – well, the course demanded I did, anyhow! I was pleased to average the equivalent of a First classification overall (although it doesn’t count towards my final mark), but I know that I could’ve done more in plenty of instances, such as by adding more extensions to some courseworks, or by performing more independent research prior to exam period – just going the extra mile necessary, in truth. So there’s plenty for me to improve upon heading forwards, and I hope that I can rise to the challenge now with the increased pressure and difficulty of second year.

This wish should hopefully be facilitated by a slightly more forgiving timetable this term. One of the most common sights on social network newsfeeds when timetables are released are comparisons between students of how many hours of lectures they have, and, following that, how many days they have to start at 9am. Being frequently dormant creatures, you do find that the average student dreads the prospect of being in the lecture theatre early on when the warmth of the duvet and pillows at home seems so inviting, but the dynamic world of university doesn’t wait around for you, and so last semester we first year Computer Scientists found ourselves heading to four 9ams or, on a good day, a 10am – no rest for the wicked! This time, however, we’ve been handed three afternoon starts to balance two early ones, so it’s seemingly a case of timetabling karma in action.

Regardless of the timing of the lectures, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity of first year to adapt to the style of teaching on offer during them, as it varies hugely from that in the classroom at school. Whereas the latter is very much a collaborative effort to ensure a collective understanding across the entire class, with teachers asking you example questions and setting homework to test your comprehension, lectures rely more on the attendees mining relevant information from condensed and often fast-paced commentaries on the syllabus, delivered by experts in their relative fields, so although it’s all too easy to lose it, focus is the key.  

This is again something I could improve on, as I tested various methods of note taking throughout the year in order to learn how to retain concentration. At first I tried writing every crucial detail present on the lecturer’s slides to ensure I engaged with the material, but I soon found that although I picked up the earlier topics quite well, towards the end I would fall behind, and before I could catch up the session would have ended. I also tried doing this with my laptop, before deciding that it simply was impractical to be moving it around campus – my fault for being a huge gamer and bringing a chunky powerhouse of a machine rather than a light notebook!

At the other end of the spectrum, I experimented with only noting things that the lecturer said but did not include on their slides. Unfortunately I discovered that not writing or actively engaging with the material made it difficult to be attentive throughout the duration of talks, and I would sometimes drift into thought on other matters and completely lose track of what was being said.

Things can move very quickly during lectures, so I found it’s important to discover your best noting system and practise it!

Having had such a chance to experiment, this year I’m hoping to tread the narrow line between the two, using good old pen and paper to note the absolutely pivotal things like definitions of terms and symbols which might help me later in the lecture when things really do pick up pace (and, in Computer Science sessions at least, it’s all too easy to fall behind!). After each lecture I’ll do my best to revisit and research topics covered to produce more comprehensive notes which summarise both my own scribbles and the lecturer’s neater slides. I’ve also uncovered the value of copying down examples performed on the whiteboard, as, when it came to revising, they often helped to further illustrate points later on.

So if you’re just coming into the world of lectures, my advice would be just to experiment for a bit and find what works best for you – and stick to it!

And in many cases I was grateful that, despite the wake-up call they enforced, I attended lectures, because, however corny it sounds, there really is no replacement for them. When it came to exam time, it was much harder to revise content I’d not previously encountered because of missed lectures (due to illness and the like, I should clarify!), and reading the powerpoint slides completely dry, without any guidance notes  at all, was much less fruitful for my understanding.

Plus, I’ve always found that anecdotal teaching, which often stems from both the lecturer and coursemates, works effectively for me – I still remember the formula for quadratic equations from school in song form, for example! This is particularly useful when I have to be able to recall facts and formulae under the pressure of the exam. Without one of my lecturer’s simple rhymes, “Break the line and change the sign”, I’d probably have forgotten de Morgan’s Laws of Logic when I most needed them; “NOT(AB) = NOT(A) + NOT(B)” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it!

Thus in a strange way, I’m quite looking forward to the lectures and workload approaching – although I don’t know to what extent I’ll agree with myself in mid-November when coursework deadlines are piling up and I’ll have a role to perform in a show!

Ah well, as they say: keep calm and carry on!

Robin

Third year mentality

I arrived in the UK mid-way through Fresher’s week and after a LOT of pre uni washing and filling my handbag with as many tins of tomatoes I could take from my mum’s shelves I set off for my third year at University. Yep that’s right, MY THIRD, LAST, YEAR!

As you may have seen, I have spent a summer dilly dallying about and not really doing a lot - suddenly university seems to have crept up on me again and, frankly, I feel outraged.

In so many ways there is nothing better than going back to Southampton and instantly falling back into that usual routine of having no routine except an expert tea rota. There was this general consensus that, seeing as it is our last and final year, we have to make the most of every moment. A philosophy I could definitely get on board with. My housemate has most certainly taken this to heart as about two weeks ago he told me that he’d decided he was moving to Hong Kong for the semester. As you do... It will be strange not having him in the house, especially as he was perfect motivation to push myself more, but I cannot be happier for him. He has seen an opportunity and gone for it, which is kind of what University is all about.

I came back and had a standard oh so classic night out at Jesters, went and did a massive shop at Sainsbury’s and I’ve already got locked out of my new bedroom – all in all, I am ready to go. I am going to take third year by storm. 

Now, like most people I am sure I will go into this year with the best intentions, with those best made plans to go to the Library after every lecture and write a little bit of my dissertation every day – I mean I have already got my felt-tip pens out and made the timetable. But, the fact is, I can’t afford to not follow through this year. What it is worth is both terrifying and thrilling in equal weight. I have fully booked myself up with events via Career Destinations, I’ve already started applying for jobs (eekkk) and I am now looking into doing a Masters (putting off the inevitable no doubt). 

However I am starting to feel torn, it’s typical isn’t it; it’s your very last year at university and you know, no matter what, you are going to have to work harder than you have ever worked before. And yet you are still considering going out multiple times a week – simply because it is your very last year at university. Yes you are going to have to work hard but surely you are going to have to make the most of being a student – to properly utilise that 10% discount in Topshop and the all the brilliant excuses being a ‘student’ provides.

I will have to become a healthy hybrid of ‘work’ and ‘play’

This year is, I suppose, about finding a balance, a skill which I probably should have learnt a long time ago but something I am notoriously bad at. I will try my hardest not to overwork myself and stress out my poor housemates with my constant panic about graduating.

This year is going to be massive, I guess I just need to accept that, take a deep breath, and look ahead.

Florence

Nostalgia

An air of nostalgia surrounds me whenever I think of the events last September. Life has taken one full circle and you feel the pinch more as a Masters student when the active association with the University lasts for just a year. I personally feel a year is too short a time…. a year passes in a flash…. and then all you are left with are memories to cherish for a lifetime. I am sure my association with my alma mater…. University of Southampton…. shall last way too long…. for a year was way too short to do justice to the plethora of activities a student could engage in whilst at the University… be it sports, fine arts, music, social activities, volunteering or pure academic activity.

Last September, one could find me filled with apprehensions…. of a new university…. a new city…. and a new culture. I would sit late at nights in front of my laptop, browsing the world wide web and trying to gather or rather extract some information about University, its faculty, its facilities and about Southampton in general. I am sure the Freshers this year would share the apprehensions I had last year.  I would circle the Freshers events in my diary and take note of the special events to be held for international students last year. Each and every piece of information was important and worth taking note of. As I flip through the pages of last year’s academic diary, I enter a flashback of the events. I have distinct memories of each and every event… be it the Freshers events or the induction programme of the faculty.

Those were the best days of our lives...

I did receive a few calls from prospective students this year to the University of Southampton and my most important advice to them was to take life as it comes…. not to speculate so as to try to grab the future… and neither to rest on past laurels. Well…. easier said than done!

When I joined the University last year, and after the initial euphoria of joining a great university sunk in, I found myself on the back foot with respect to the initial aptitude of the class. In India, there is a lot of emphasis on theory behind the principles. However, in the UK I found that the general stress was on application of underlying principles. One was not expected to memorise or remember…. but understand and apply. It was a huge difference and the difference was worth noting and I took some time to appreciate it.

The adorable class.....

Gradually, I settled in the class and found myself at ease with the academics and general aptitude of the class. It was then when not only did I appreciate what was being taught but also began enjoying it. It is very important for Freshers to be on their toes in the initial few months when they are settling in.

Last September marked the beginning of a new relationship…. a relationship with new found friends… a relationship with the excellent faculty… a relationship with the University… a relationship with the beloved city of Southampton. And this September, as the entire class met for the last time a few weeks back, I wondered if it was the end of these relationships. Would all of us hand over our dissertations and go on our individual paths? Would this September mark the culmination of relationships born last year?

And the answer is…. a big No…. it is a new beginning. For now, many of us have stayed in Southampton – some in hope of a PhD with the University, some of us busy attending rounds and rounds of interviews to land a job – and some like me have just taken a break to take stock of the future.

Depart to meet again....

Hope the future is bright and we achieve whatever we aspire to! Hope to see each other’s bright and happy faces very soon! Hope to meet each and every one of us for our grand Graduation ceremony next July! Amen!

Rohit