Jailbreak 2016

“36 hours. The sky’s the limit. Where will you end up?”

From Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th, I participated in Jailbreak 2016 with my best friend Claudia Pellegrino.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this unique and incredible event, Jailbreak is a charity hitchhike organised by The Union’s RAG (Raise and Give) team, whereby students endeavour to travel as far away from the University WITH NO MONEY in 36 hours!

Not only did this sound extremely thrilling, but it was in aid of three fantastic charities:

Action Against Hunger: providing life-saving care for malnourished children.

Alzheimer’s Society: A leading charity in the fight against Dementia - a brain disorder affecting over 850,000 people in the UK alone!

Group 170: a local Southampton-based family group from HCPT The Pilgrimage Trust who take takes disabled, sick and disadvantaged children on holidays.

Before the trip

The aim for each participant was to raise £50 through their JustGiving page. We absolutely smashed this target with a total of £223 before the big event! Between all 27 teams this year, we managed to fundraise over £5,000.

We wanted a themed hitchhike and decided we would dress up as Pocahontas and Little Red Riding Hood and call our team name Escape from Fairyland!

Signs made, Pocahontas and Little Red Riding Hood ready to go!

We had also rang and emailed around various airlines/ferry companies and secured two FREE return tickets from Portsmouth to Caen.

Saturday

At 9am, the horn was blown and 27 teams sprinted off in different directions. We headed straight to Bassett Green where we spent an hour hitchhiking in the freezing cold in hope of a lift to Portsmouth. Although we were extremely unlucky, we bagged a ride to the City Centre with none other than an ex-Southampton Jailbreaker!

From there, we wandered around West Quay and Marlands doing bucket collections and raised enough money to fund a cheap bus to Portsmouth to catch our ferry!

At the ferry terminal we came across other Jailbreak teams and had a group photo together, before embarking on our 6-hour ferry ride to Caen! Despite the length of the ferry ride, we had a fantastic time enjoying coffee, chocolate and making friends with other passengers - we were even offered a ride to Croatia!

Having a romantic Titanic moment on the ferry!

We were extremely tired (and hungover in my case) by the time the ferry arrived at Caen. Fortunately, my friend picked us up and drove us 2 hours to stay at another friend’s house in Rouen.

It was a very surreal experience going back to the town where I had spent my semester abroad and I was over the moon to meet some of my friends again!

Sunday

We had received free bus tickets from Flixbus from Quai du Havre, Rouen to Charles de Gaulle airport. Having awoken at 6am to catch our bus, we were extremely disheartened the bus did not show up. However, we met a lovely Algerian man who let us wait in his car until 10am with his friends - at which point it became apparent that no bus was coming.

Top Tip: Always keep snacks. Never trust French transport on Sundays.

Fortunately, his friend was leaving for Charles de Gaulle airport with his wife and they kindly offered us a lift! Unfortunately, it took over an hour longer than planned (due to some directional issues) and we were dropped off rather far from the airport and having to walk down an A road for a while until we hitchhiked another lift.

At the airport we spent hours asking airlines for free/discounted flights but were unlucky so we decided to catch a 4-hour train back to Caen.

Highlight of the trip: Arriving late and desperate to avoid sleeping at the Caen ferry terminal, we thought we might as well try our luck for a cheap hotel room...and managed to get a free hotel room and complimentary breakfast!

A delightful assortment of pain de mie, hot drinks, yoghurts and condiments!

Monday

Our last day of Jailbreak kickstarted with yet another missing bus. This seemed to be a common morning theme for us! After waiting for half an hour, we decided to bite the bullet and pay for an overpriced cab to get to the ferry terminal in time. We met another team at the terminal and headed back to Portsmouth.

Appropriate ferry cafe name!

Having returned to English soil, my friend came to pick us up and drop us home- special shout out to Sam for being stuck in traffic for 90 minutes on the way to pick us up!

And so concludes my Jailbreak experience! It was a very surreal, unique experience and honestly, one of the best weekends of my life!

It was also a fantastic opportunity to put my degree into practice and speak french throughout the weekend.

A massive thank you to everyone who helped us (tried to help us) along the way and to my amazing friend Claudia for putting up with me all weekend!

I hope this has more than convinced you to take part in Jailbreak 2017!

Aditi

Part 3: After my Year Abroad

After completing my Year Abroad in France way back in June, the first thing I knew I wanted to do was revive some of the Erasmus culture when I came back to Southampton - by joining the Erasmus Society! It’s proved to be a great decision so far.

I’m one of this year’s buddy coordinators for the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) at Southampton, along with my excellent fellow coordinators, Désirée and Jodie. Essentially, the three of us have the difficult task of matching up the best part of 400 students, so that international and UK students can get to meet one another and practise speaking whichever language/s they want.

The word ‘difficult’ is quite probably the understatement of the century here, as our decisions are bound to make some people delighted whilst others will feel more disappointed.

At the Erasmus introductory white T-shirt party

Back in early October, we sent out a quick survey asking people about their interests and subjects as well as the preferred nationality of their potential ‘buddies’. The response was incredible; much better than we had ever imagined, so our job was even more challenging!

There are 18 of us on the committee, which is one of the largest contingents at the University. So far this year, we’ve promoted ourselves at the Bunfight, set up trips to Oxford and Bath Christmas markets and organised introductory and Halloween parties. As we’re in charge of the buddy scheme, we create meet ups but the initiative is very much down to the amount of effort the buddies put in.

 My committee polo t-shirt!

Now more than ever, I realise just how important and rewarding such a scheme is, especially having just returned from a year abroad myself. At the start, it can be extremely daunting as you never know whether you’ll like the country, be able to make friends and manage the dreaded language barrier.

The buddy scheme is so relevant in establishing a bond between home and international students, rather than allowing cliques to grow, and showing that everyone who studies and works here is a valued part of our community. I think this is very important, especially with recent political events (Brexit being one of many!).

For all the Modern Languages students at Southampton learning French, Spanish, German - you name it - there will be just as many Erasmus and international students looking to improve their English with a native speaker. Another really great thing about it is that it’s not exclusively for language students – anyone can join in!

One of the Language Exchange events at the Bridge

We’re equally fortunate to have a multitude of language events where people can chill out and chat with people of all nationalities from diverse backgrounds, even if it’s just down the pub or on campus. After all, people often say they speak a language more fluently after a drink or two!

Nowadays, there’s a Language Exchange every Tuesday evening at Bridge on campus which always has a warm, friendly atmosphere, plus the French Society, Spanish and Portuguese Society (SLAPS) and German Society all run weekly cafés in nearby Portswood.

There really is no shortage of language opportunities here at Southampton!

Paul

Student volunteering in Southampton

When you start university you have a ton of opportunities to engage with the university community. Be it through societies or course representation or sports.

Although it is natural that we as students mostly engage and associate ourselves with other students, I believe we tend to forget how much students can have an impact on Southampton as a local community.

Ever since I got to England I’ve always felt it would be nice to give something back to Southampton as a city - after all this is my home now. This brings me on to the topic I want to discuss in this blog post; volunteering.

I’ve been volunteering as a Befriender for Age UK Southampton since February of this year. It is something I have thought about for a long time. There is definitely not a shortage of volunteering opportunities in Southampton, but it’s all about finding an association that fits you.

I chose Age UK because I cannot imagine anything worse than feeling isolated and alone, especially at an older age. Being a Befriender means that they set you up with an elderly person who needs a bit of company once a week, mostly it’s around an hour, which I believe everyone has spare in a week. They currently have a long waiting list of people who want a Befriender and, with the amount of people who live in Southampton, it shouldn’t be like that.

Most elderly people want a befriender during the day-time. However, most people who work can’t spare the time until after-work hours or during the weekend when the need isn’t that big. That’s why students with flexible timetables are a great fit as Befrienders!

Volunteering isn’t just a one-way thing, it is genuinely very rewarding to feel and see that you can make a difference to someone’s life and that’s why I have chosen to write about my experience in this blog post.

For me, volunteering means visiting my new friend once a week for about one hour. With travel time, I probably spend around two hours a week on this, which is nothing compared to the time I procrastinate or do other irrelevant things. The big difference is that volunteering isn’t irrelevant. For example, I have now learnt a lot of new English words through playing scrabble and I continue to learn and hear new things all the time I spend volunteering.

Therefore, if there is anyone out there who wants to volunteer, but doesn’t really know where to start, I have three tips:

• Firstly, find out what you want to do and who you want to work with. For example you could work with elderly people, homeless people or animals.

• Secondly, when you have established who you want to work with, find out who you want to volunteer for. For example, there are a number of volunteering societies at the in the Students' Union, which offers you a great range of organisations you can volunteer with. Our Careers and Employability team can also help with finding you a role with their Volunteering Bank. Alternatively, you can simply Google your way to an organisation and contact them directly!

• Thirdly, find out what fits your timetable and explain to the organisation so you can work out a good plan. I have chosen to do my volunteering on a day I don’t have any lectures. 

In case you are not in Southampton at the moment, this is the sunshine you are missing out on. 

I hope that you consider doing some volunteering in the future – it’s definitely very rewarding and I highly recommend it! Not only are you helping others, but it can teach you new things and also looks great on your CV!

Alexandra

What I've missed about university over the break

As I am cracking on with the final touches to my dissertation and although there are plenty of things to do at home, there are some things that I have missed about university life during the semester.

I guess the reason why I am thinking about this is because, as a final-year student, the thought of forever being on a university break is dawning on me; what happens during a four week Easter break will soon be, simply, the norm.

Here are the top four things I’m looking forward to when the break ends:

The People

I miss coming home from the library late at night and heading straight to my housemate’s room for our nightly chit-chat. What’s great about living with other students is that there’s no need to make plans in order to catch up. If I want to have a cup of tea with my other friends who I don’t live with, they are just down the road or around the area.

The other things I miss are communal meals. Currently, I live in a house of seven people so we often eat and cook together. It’s the perfect time to bond and catch up with what we have been up to during the day and food somehow just tastes better when you’re eating with someone else. Of course it can be loud but that just means there is never a dull moment at my student house. Plus, it’s strange seeing the kitchen so clean and the hobs so shiny!

House Christmas meal

The University Schedule

I never thought I’d say this but I even miss Monday morning seminars! I normally have a schedule during the week based on lectures, seminars and meetings. It helps plan out deadlines and tasks for the week. I am even encouraged to go to the gym because I’m already on campus and the gym is so accessible – my Mondays are for spinning class and Thursdays are for Zumba! I even miss the green and pretty campus. I’m sure it would look even more beautiful in full Spring bloom when term starts again.

The Activities

I’m really looking forward to the first Filipino Society committee meeting after the break. We’re planning to hold a Filipino themed Karaoke night as part of Culture Week so that’s something to look forward to! It’s been a while since we last held a social so this is an excellent time for the society to catch up with each other. Of course there’s also society handovers to think about. It’s crazy to think it’s been almost a whole year since I became President. University clubs are the best way to meet people who have similar interests as you. Conversely, it is also a good way to immerse yourself into a different group of people altogether. I am aiming to try out a new society in the last few months.

With the Filipino Society committee

At the Easter Fair held on Southampton Common every April 

The Student Perks

Since I haven’t graduated yet, my student discount still applies. These are definitely something I’ll miss after graduation. Most retailers have exclusive deals for students. Even takeaway restaurants around the city have student deals!

Food tastes better with the 10% student discount…

The second half of semester two starts in a week again and I am so excited. There’s plenty to look forward to: handing in my dissertation, International Culture Week, exam season (maybe not so much for this one!), graduation and, of course, THE GRAD BALL. Yes, there are lots of things coming up so watch this space!

Rylyn

Society Projects and SUSU Funding

With December now very much up and running, and Christmas cheer still being firmly spread across campus, this week I found myself a little more busy with other things. Top secret things.

Okay, they’re not really that top secret, but the sense of mystery does make it all seem that little bit more exciting. To be more plainly obvious: this week I’ve been working quite extensively on a project to help boost the University’s focus on film and film-making and to encourage increased collaboration between the creative industries. It’s still a little way off but it’s certainly still an encouraging prospect!

What this post is really about though, is my surprise at how straight-forward it is to go about setting something like this up. Without sounding like too much of a hard-sell, the University and the Students’ Union (SUSU) really do hand you the tools to help you realise a whole range of possibilities. Well, it has to be firmly within reason obviously, but the fact is, if you have an idea for an event or project that you think will benefit the University and/or SUSU, there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a go.

This all started a few months ago now at the very beginning of the semester, at the Creative Industries Induction week held by our lovely SUSU Creative team - you’ll find I blogged about said event all those weeks ago! During a team-building exercise, the creative societies in attendance were asked to come up with ways to encourage collaboration with each other, and it was at this point that myself as Film Editor of the University’s entertainment magazine The Edge, and Pippa, the president of the film-making society Wessex Films, hatched an ingenious plan.

 Together we started to brainstorm ideas for a University-wide student Film Festival.

Pippa and I, hard at work on our ideas for the festival

It may have started a little ambitiously, but we soon found that actually, the University itself has everything we would need to run such an event, from a cinema in the form of Union Films, to support staff, a bar and of course, most importantly of all, funding.

Things always seem to become significantly more complicated when money is involved, but SUSU’s funding process was surprisingly pretty straightforward. All you need is access to a society computer account and the forms are all submitted online. After some hefty research to make sure our maths was right, everything was sent off for approval and I let out a huge sigh of relief.

Sending the funding forms off was surprisingly straight forward.

It’s very easy to bat these things away as impossible dreams, but when you sit down and actually begin to plan, it all becomes a lot simpler. The University, its campuses and its many, many societies and services form a condensed version of the wider world. Everything is in one place and within reaching distance (including people to help with the process) making it the perfect time to practice setting up an event or project like this.

So, to end with some wise words from the contemporary poet Shia LaBeouf: “Don’t let your dreams be dreams”. Being at University is the perfect time to give ambitious things like this a go. You’ll always find support around should you need it.

Obviously, keep an eye out for the soon-to-be-named student film festival coming to campus at some point in the new year!

Ben

Balancing the fun

It comes as no real surprise that now we’re somehow already three weeks into term, things are starting to heat up. Every single time anybody, staff or student, asks me how I am, I end up replying with just one word: busy. And right now, I really mean it, for a whole number of reasons.

I should probably point out now, before we get any further, that I am very much one of those people that enjoys being busy. I actively seek it out and thrive on the very act of being busy. Not everyone’s university life will be this hectic; that’s the beauty of your time here, it’s exactly what you make of it and if you don’t enjoy that sort of thing, you really don’t have to follow such a path.

But for those who enjoy wrapping themselves up in as many activities as humanly possible…well, this is your time to shine.

As my last post will have no doubt indicated, lectures are now in full swing - all of my four modules (dissertation included) are well off the ground and the corresponding reading/writing/doodling is ticking away nicely. Thus, in a dramatic turn of events, I have well and truly found my feet with work. Everything else however, is a little more up in the air.

This past week has seen me broaden my horizons further and take on an exciting new project in the form of a Surge Radio show. Having conquered print and visual media, radio seemed like the next logical step. With the University’s award-winning student radio station attracting attention from BBC hosts Chris Stark and Scott Mills last week, it seemed like the perfect time to get involved. So, our SUSUtv-lead film opinion show ‘Reel Opinions’ made the jump from the screen to the airwaves, and despite a few technical mishaps (soon to be ironed out), playing music and chatting live on air was a surprisingly exhilarating experience.

So much so, in fact, that it’s about to become a regular occurrence; make sure to tune into Surge Radio at 8pm every Tuesday to hear yours truly playing some of the best music film soundtracks have to offer!

The Reel Opinions team feeling at home in the Surge Radio studio. 

Now drifting back to my first love of print media; the past few weeks in fact have seen some interesting and exciting developments. Back at the University’s own student entertainment magazine, The Edge, we’ve been working hard on gathering together the designs for our future print issues, whilst the second of the year has finally arrived in all its glossy glory.

Our first printed magazine of the year flew off the shelves during the Bunfight and the Freshers’ fayre - so much so in fact that we don’t have a single copy left - and we’re hoping for equally great things from this latest effort. Wrestling with Adobe InDesign for many, many hours is definitely worth it when this is the end product!

The cherry on the cake, however, is something that has been stealing almost every free hour of time I’ve had since late September. Yes, in spite of warring lectures and design deadlines, the last month or so has been largely populated by trips into our nation’s capital in order to cover the 2015 BFI London Film Festival for The Edge.

One of the many perks of being the magazine’s Film Editor is handling press contacts, and this year we were granted an all-access press pass to all of the films screening as part of the festival, meaning I’ve been to a lot of free screenings, and have been writing a lot of corresponding reviews. It’s a pretty hefty undertaking, and it has meant cramming in work at every available opportunity (even whilst standing up on trains), but that’s all part of the fun.

My press badge for the festival - my most valued possession. 

After all, this is what University has really been about for me recently; juggling responsibilities and balancing the fun. There are so many incredible opportunities being offered up by the University, and with this being my (deep breath) final year here, it seems only sensible to embrace as many of them as physically possible. I’m sure that soon enough I’ll have a bit of a rest - the festival comes to an end this weekend so there’s plenty of sleep scheduled for then - but until then I’m still firing on all cylinders, and loving every minute.

Ben

Making the most of my last undergraduate year

Last year I had a chat with a representative of PwC. It was an informal CV consultation in an event set up by the University’s Careers and Employability team. I had no obligation to apply for the employer after I graduate - it was simply an opportunity to have an interactive one-on-one session with someone who was hiring. What we spoke about during this meeting has had a profound impact on my last year as an undergraduate student.

As we chatted through my CV, we spoke about how my grades and job history were good, but there was a space that was missing a lot of writing: extra-curricular activities. It is true that your grades are crucial to your job search. At the same time, however, so are your activities outside of academia. As cheesy as this may sound, it indicates to employers how wholesome you are as an individual and thus plays a crucial part in what give you an edge as an applicant.

Never managed a team before? There is support out there for you. I got this book from the Academic Skills  shelf on the third floor of Hartley library.

So, in light of this, I became President of the Filipino Society. I had never managed a society before, let alone had been part of a committee. I am still getting used to delegation and event planning, but with the help of the team I hope to make this year a successful one for the society. Our first event for the year was, of course, the Bunfight.

Planning this turned out to be quite enjoyable, and we decided that the best way to introduce newcomers to Filipino culture is through the stomach.

So, we got sweets!

The Filipino Society’s stall at the bunfight. The tubs on the right hand side are Filipino sweets and chocolate.

Our aim is to bring Filipinos together and to promote our culture – anyone can join, regardless of nationality! But I must state that the sweets weren’t to lure people into signing up for the society. We decided to have them out as it was a good conversation starter and, well, who doesn’t like treats anyway?

We also chatted to prospective members about other events we are planning to hold such as Karaoke nights, Movie nights and last but not the least, our Filipino themed Halloween Party!

Our poster/invite that we handed out at the Bunfight!

The Freshers' Week Bunfight was exceptionally busy this year. Within the first hour we must have chatted to over 100 students! I also had the time to look around other societies’ stalls, and I was surprised to find out about groups that I never even knew existed.

Are you a fan of Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? Did you know that Southampton has a Fandomonium Society where you can express your love for your favourite books, TV shows and more? Amazing!

The Bunfight in full swing! (Credit to University of Southampton’s twitter page)

 Of course there were perks to being a committee member and running a stall too…

The Bunfight pass allowed stall runners to skip the queue and have a wander through the stalls on their breaks!

I also attended the LGBT Society lunch at The Bridge. The purpose of the society is to provide a space for LGBT+ students to socialise with one another and express who they are free from judgement. I believe in this cause so I’ve also decided to join this year.

Me with the LGBT Society Committee

Looking back on my first time at the Bunfight, I realised how easy it was for me to sign up to too many societies. SUSU has over 300 different student groups, including over 80 sport clubs and 30 performing arts groups.

For me, it is far better to actively contribute to one or two clubs or societies than be a passive member of them all!

And so, the final countdown has started; I may have to be a bit more organised but the pleasure principle need not be lost!

Happy socialising!

Rylyn