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 2: During the Year Abroad

The deadline is fast approaching for second-year students to decide on their Year Abroad destinations, so hopefully here I can convince you what a great opportunity it is!

If you didn’t know already, last year, I was on a study exchange at Université Grenoble-Alpes in the French Alps. Grenoble’s not the most well-known place in France but I definitely found that to be one of the most enticing factors about living there.

Skiing at Les Deux Alpes

The university

First and foremost, university life was completely different in France compared to here. For example, there were several different campuses, with mine on the outskirts of the city. For Erasmus students, the process was daunting at first as you’re suddenly thrust into two-hour lectures in French alongside native students and then you have to organise your own timetable. We only needed to achieve 30 credits for the year, translating to 5 / 6 classes a week so, naturally, I left Monday and Friday free to catch up on work or explore more.

The stereotype is that French administration is arduous and inefficient – something I can definitely vouch for! However, I found it useful to experience another education system and it certainly helped my organisational skills.

Me in Avignon (credit: Trott Shots Photography)

Speaking the language

Undoubtedly the main reason for going abroad is to speak the language as much as possible. This can be a challenge as most students of other nationalities wanted to improve their English but at the same time, gaining fluency in the foreign language is very rewarding.

I tried buying magazines or newspapers to enhance my vocabulary outside of class. Otherwise, joining a club, participating in language exchanges or doing some sort of voluntary work (like for a food bank) are all valuable additions to any CV as well as to your own personal development.

That didn’t stop me making some embarrassing linguistic mistakes though – many French words only have minor nuances in pronunciation, as I found to my cost on several occasions!

Up Mont Blanc

Opportunities

Living and studying at the heart of the French Alps was a real treat, in terms of travelling to places like Lyon or Annecy or even going over to Switzerland and Geneva. Fortunately, Southern Rail’s network doesn’t stretch quite that far! Likewise, I couldn’t refuse the chance to go skiing and for a very reasonable price too with a student card.

Furthermore, although there wasn’t the same emphasis on societies, there were so many opportunities to play sports for credits or as a hobby, as I did with tennis in my first semester.

Visiting Lyon's new stadium

The UN building in Geneva

Taking in an ice hockey match 

Finance

As a student, it’s natural to be concerned about the fees of it all. As language students, the year abroad was an obligatory part of our degree but for other subjects, the opportunity is often there without people even knowing it.

However, the reality is much more optimistic – the fees for the year are just over the £1000 mark, but when you factor in extra finance from Student Finance plus a 300 euro monthly Erasmus grant, a year abroad does not have to be unaffordable nor inaccessible.

Paul

A weekend in Portsmouth with my twin

So, here we are, four weeks in and the blog posts keep coming! After a couple of weeks of getting back into the swing of university life, my brother came down for the weekend from Bath – did I happen to mention that he’s also my twin?

We usually visit each other twice a semester and last weekend David came over to stay for a few days. Normally we can make plans easily, especially as there are so many options; day trips to Winchester, Portsmouth, and Bournemouth to name just a few. However, with the recent rail disruption, we decided to get a National Express instead over to Portsmouth, therefore saving time and money.

Me and David, my twin!

Spending a year abroad and traveling at weekends has given me a real sense of adventure that I still want to keep up this year. You may have to whisper it quietly in these parts but Portsmouth is a fantastic city to spend time in, and I’m not just saying that because I support its local football team!

In a nutshell, ‘Pompey’ (as Portsmouth is affectionately known) is served well by transport connections, but the hub of the city is definitely around the harbour. There, the historic part of the city with the Naval Dockyard meets the newer Gunwharf Quays, which is filled with plenty of shops and is also home to the towering, iconic landmark of Portsmouth – the Spinnaker Tower.

 HMS Victory - visible as soon as you leave the train station!

Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower 

Portsmouth Marina

After a quick lunch consisting of a pasty (yes they’re not just sold in the West Country!) and a drink, we headed off to the Dockyard where we were visiting the new Mary Rose exhibition which has only been open for 3 months. I’d done a tour of the naval site a couple of times before, giving me an excellent chance to reminisce. Although King Henry VIII’s old flagship was recovered from the Solent several years ago, they’ve been really busy since then restoring and washing the ship before leaving it to dry for the last three – yes, three - years! From the pictures it looks so special today even if only half of the wreckage was ever found.

The Mary Rose

I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking for a day trip, especially as travel can work out quite cheap (a £7 return bus journey using National Express). Furthermore, the Dockyard itself offers good deals around the £20 mark which allow you to return as much as possible in a year if you don’t get everything done the first time.

After getting back to Southampton, we went for pizza and a night at the cinema watching The Girl on the Train. I don’t want to give too many clues away but the title is definitely very accurate, plus it’s a gripping psychological thriller with some unexpected twists along the way!

On Sunday, there was just about enough time for a pub roast dinner before David headed back to Bath on the train. In a month’s time, I might just be able to do the return journey!

Thanks for reading!

Paul

Witch hunting in Burley

With the end of October approaching fast and deadlines starting to line up, especially the dreaded deadline to hand in my dissertation abstract (!!). I have more than enough to fill my days up with. That’s why it’s nice when I get an excuse to do something else and go on a small adventure!

This weekend I went on a small adventure to the New Forest and a little village called Burley. I hadn’t heard about Burley before and that it is supposedly quite famous due to witchcraft in the 1950’s.

And if you, like me, haven’t heard about it then I will explain what it is all about.

In the 50’s a woman named Sybil Leek lived in the village. She was a so-called 'white witch', which means that she was a witch using her powers for good and not evil. However, the locals did not appreciate this and it eventually forced Sybil Leek to relocate to America, where she continued to pursue studying astrology and the occult.

The locals might not have liked it back then, but today it actually makes them great business – especially now that Halloween is coming up!

The story of Sybil Leek found in a shop in Burley

Burley is in the middle of New Forest and not far from Lymington, which I’ve been to before. By car it took us around 30 minutes driving there and despite the village being very small there are a few things you can do.

We visited all the local shops where they among other things sell Burley homemade caramel, which is so nice it's worth the trip out there alone! There are also a couple of places to eat and it is a perfect spot for a Sunday lunch.

The locals went to not wanting to be associated with witchcraft to now having shops based on it!

I did not see any witches, but we did meet some New Forest ponies and even drove past some wild pigs. On the way home we stopped by beautiful Lymington for a coffee and some antique shopping.

Some of the villages in New Forest have amazing antique shops where you can find so many nice and unique things like jewelry and home decorations.

The best part of all of this is that we left home around 11am and got back right after 4pm. In other words, you don’t have to set off a whole day for this. This goes for most of the villages in the New Forest; they are all so easy to get to.

Now I have some more inspiration to what I can dress up as for Halloween and I hope you might be inspired to explore the New Forest!

Alexandra

Holiday or hard work? Why you should choose a field trip module

“Field trips are just holidays”

I am fairly certain that anyone who has ever been on a school field trip has heard this phrase at some point or another, despite the fact that trips can be highly educational.

Field trips often result in mixed experiences - yes, admittedly certain school field trips end up being a (potentially free) holiday with your classmates but, equally, field trips can also provide an occasion where students are constantly engaged and working due to the close contact with staff!

This September I went abroad on the Berlin field trip for one week for one of my third-year Geography modules. Unlike previous years, this year’s trip consisted of only eight students (six of which were male!)

East Side Gallery, Mühlenstraße– An International Memorial for Freedom

Due to the small group size, this meant that there was nowhere to hide in terms of each individual pulling their weight in terms of workload and contributing to our intimate seminars.

The field trip was very intense - given that it was the equivalent of a term’s worth of lecture content squeezed into five full days!

A typical day on the field trip

7:30am: Wake up calls and breakfast
9am: Lecture
10:30am: Out in the city
4-6pm: Return to the hostel to prepare presentations
6pm: Evening presentations/seminar

Each day was themed (political ideologies, memory and memorials, architecture, etc.) and the lecture at the beginning of the day provided an overview into what kind of concepts we were expected to research during our day. We were split into two groups of four (which varied each day) and had to prepare a research proposal and presentation for our evening seminar.

Amongst the stelae at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

As you can see, we were studying and researching from 9am to 8pm at night. Part of our assessment for the module was ‘participation in the course’ therefore there was an extra incentive (and pressure!) to perform well during the course, and not just treat the week as a holiday abroad with lovely company!

So why bother going?

I realise that so far I have portrayed my field trip as rather busy but, in fact, it was the best trip I have ever been on! Yes, the workload was intense and the days were exhausting, but you go to bed knowing that you’ve had a majorly productive day and learnt much more about a city than any Lonely Planet Guide could tell you.

The week in Berlin also put me in a great position in terms of coming back to Southampton and not having any lectures for the course but just coursework to write!

I realise that field trips are not always optional or part of every degree on offer at the University of Southampton, but I would encourage any of you with the opportunity to take a field trip module! Aside from visiting a very trendy city filled to the brim with historical and cultural significance, I had the opportunity to meet and bond with people on my course whom I may not have ever ended up meeting if it weren’t for the trip!

Learning outside the four walls of a lecture theatre was a real refresher as to why I chose to study Geography and reminded me of its real-world relevance.

Berlin was a brilliant experience and I’ll never forget the excellent week I had away!

Aditi

Part 1: Before the Year Abroad

So, we’re a few weeks into the whirlwind life of university and already the workload is noticeably getting ever so slightly heavier! But then, no one ever said that final year was a doss!

Our first few weeks of language classes have focused heavily on our year abroad and this has certainly brought back a bit of nostalgia of when we were applying for study or work placements two years ago.

The process, at least for Modern Languages students, starts pretty much from the start of the second year where we get lectures outlining all the possible options for the year ahead. In our case, we had the choice of going to a partner university as an Erasmus or exchange student (as I did by going to Grenoble in France), working as a teaching assistant for British Council or finding our own work experience for the year.

The whole enormity of the process is, at first, very daunting for a lot of students, myself included, but rather than something to be feared, the Year Abroad should be something to be relished. That’s all the more so because this opportunity doesn’t come around all that often, especially when we eventually graduate.

I also know just how daunting it was – I only decided to change to doing an Erasmus year in France one week before the November deadline! Although there may admittedly be plenty of paperwork to fill out beforehand, it’s likely that you’ll find that good preparation for a year abroad, especially if you’re going to be living in a country where the bureaucracy is very frustrating - believe me!

Around Université Stendhal in Grenoble, where I did my study placement

However, if you thought that only language students get the chance to work or study abroad, you’d be very much mistaken.

Nowadays, there seems to be a very evident focus on gaining experience working or studying in a foreign country as part of your degree. I’m rather ashamed to admit that I hadn’t heard about all of these opportunities until my second year came about but even since getting back to Southampton just a month ago, I’ve met people who have traveled to all sorts of locations – from Canada, to Norway and even to Australia! Furthermore, these students all study degree courses that aren’t Modern Languages.

Résidence Ouest, where I stayed 

Whether you’re a student who’s thinking of applying to study at the University of Southampton or you’re currently in your first or second year here, I’d advise you to really consider the possibility of participating in a Year Abroad with the University.

Me on my first day in France

Not only is it a great way of expanding your horizons and exploring new places - it allows you to meet and interact with people of all nationalities and it challenges you to discover what you are capable of in many aspects, be it linguistically, socially, intellectually etc.

You’ll learn things about yourself that can’t be taught in any lecture theatre or classroom, and that is what should spur you on to apply.

Paul

A weekend away in Devon

Two and a half hours from Southampton lies beautiful Exeter, which makes the perfect destination for a little weekend away.

I’ve previously written about day trips you can make on the south coast in places like Bournemouth, Winchester and Poole. Exeter, on the other hand, is a tad further away and requires more than one day, perhaps. It’s between two and a half to three hours on the train and about the same with the car, so staying overnight is definitely something I would recommend.

A big part of my boyfriend’s family comes from Exeter, so last weekend we went down there for a wedding. Apart from the wedding, which was held at the University, we spent the next day strolling through the streets of Exeter, visiting Topsham and Darts Farm.

Exeter is in Devon, and Devon is supposed to be one of the most beautiful counties of England, so if you want to see more of it, it’s better to go by car. There are loads of places to stop on the way there depending on which route you take; Salisbury and Dorchester are a few options. Topsham and Darts Farm, where we went in Exeter, are definitely easiest to reach by car.

Exeter itself is a beautiful little town, especially the area around the cathedral. It reminds me a bit of Winchester, so it goes without saying it’s lovely! Exeter also got quite a good variety of shops if you fancy doing some shopping, although most of the shops you will find here in Southampton too.

Exeter Cathedral 

The main reason we went to Exeter was for the family wedding. The wedding was held at the University of Exeter's halls, which was a beautiful venue. It definitely felt like I was in Harry Potter, but Mayflower Halls will always be the best halls in my opinion. Completely unbiased, of course!

My wedding date!

Reed Halls - the wedding venue

Topsham is only about a 10-minute drive from Exeter city centre and it’s your typical beautiful little English village with a lovely river running through it. We spent a little hour here going for a walk and dreaming through antique shops.  Topsham is also where Darts Farm is located.

Sunny Topsham

Darts Farm was awarded the best farm shop in 2016 and has been featured on the BBC for being one of the top ten destination farm shops. They sell all types of organic food and drinks, offer bike hires and even have a spa. We had a lovely time here walking around in the sunshine before we started our journey back home to Southampton again.

Walking around Darts Farm

The boyfriend and the lama

I hope you're enjoying the summer as much as I am!

Alexandra

Celebrating abroad: results in Budapest

With results flooding straight into our email inboxes this week, my friends and I thought it best that we were in the most comfortable place possible when we received them, so we flew off to sunny Budapest for a few days!

It might not be top of most people’s lists of places to visit, but the Hungarian capital is a total holiday haven for students for a whole number of reasons.

Artistically speaking, the buildings are positively gorgeous; a beautiful mixture of old-school Gothic architecture with waves of more modern influences. The classical thermal bath-houses are a definite must-see - a lot of them even have regular swimming pools now too.

For the Historians among us, the city has a super interesting background too; from the still firmly intact Buda Castle to the constant call-backs to the country’s former-Soviet past. Statues of all sorts of interesting figures from Hungarian war heroes to Ronald Reagan are dotted all around the city.

 Even our apartment building was just a joy to look at

I even have a personal connection to the place too, which felt stronger as I was wandering around the streets. My mum just so happens to have been born in Budapest, and she fled the city and the country as a young child during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, so it was fascinating to be able to see how far the city has come in all that time.

Not to mention that the wobbly currency makes everything insanely cheap. A fancy meal out set me back less than £10, including wine, whilst an evening out in one of the many awesomely-decorated ruin bars (exactly what you’d expect them to be) proved even less expensive than a night at our own dearest Jesters.

 Riding bikes around a city as gorgeous as Budapest is definitely a sure-fire way to stave off the nerves from results!

The cherry on the cake was, of course, being able to share such a beautiful city with my friends, and all of us receiving our final year results together whilst enjoying the sun was a definite highlight. Ultimately, everyone emerged super happy and pleased with what they achieved too, which was a total relief.

Returning to Southampton was somewhat bittersweet, very much missing the joys of such a glorious foreign land, but pleased to be back somewhere familiar, if only briefly.

My time here is very gradually coming to an end, with now barely even a week left to gather everything together before moving on.

I guess that makes it time to finally cross off the last few things from the Southampton bucket list then!

Ben

My mini Italian adventure

I'm writing this post sat outside a little restaurant on the banks of one of Venice's many canals. Two days ago our mini adventure began when we flew from Gatwick to Milan, where we stayed for one night before catching the train to Venice in the morning.

We decided to do a little bit of a whistle-stop tour of major Italian cities, rather than stay in one place for the week because neither I nor my partner have experienced much of Italy before, and we couldn't decide on just one place to go.

Tomorrow we will set off for Florence where we will stay for two nights and then finish our trip with three days in Rome.

Milan's very fancy train station

I am absolutely in love with the Italian railway system. The trains are beautifully comfortable and half the price of English trains, so they really are a cost effective way of travelling around the country. In hindsight, however, I would have opted for a student interrail pass, rather than buying the tickets at the station. When we originally looked at the prices, it seemed to work out about the same, but of course, we completely neglected the fact that the prices go up massively when you are buying tickets on the day. That said, it was still only €40 for the three-hour journey from Milan to Venice, and I think I would struggle to get the train from Southampton to Birmingham for that price!

Rialto bridge as seen from the bus!

The bus in Venice puts Unilink to shame! While it's quite a bit more costly than a Unilink return (€20 for the day), seeing Venice from the canals rather than walking around gives you an entirely different perspective, plus the ticket cost includes boats to Morano, which is around the same distance from the bus stop as the Isle of Wight from Southampton (and that trip alone would set you back £20)

Academia dome

The main method for keeping costs down this trip has been taking the time to choose the accommodation, to try and get the best price possible. In Venice, rather than staying on the island which would have cost upwards of £150 for two nights (?!) we are staying in a hostel on the mainland, which cost £49 for two people for two nights!

Of course, when you step down in price you lose some of the luxuries of hotels, such as insulation and soundproofing. We are staying in essentially a static caravan, however, it does have a private bathroom, a market on site and a pool, so on balance we made the right choice, but I wouldn't recommend it to light sleepers!

Travelling on a budget has been tricky. While we want to keep costs down, we don't want to let worrying about money spoil the trip and stop us doing things. We forwent a gondola ride (€80 for 35 minutes), or a water taxi (average €30 for a short city trip) in favour of getting the bus, but instead had dinner in a lovely restaurant and I treated myself to a Morano glass pen. James asked when I would ever use such a thing but I silenced him by pointing out that I thought it was beautiful, and that that was justification enough to buy it!

I can't wait to experience the artistic history of Florence and the majesty of Rome. I'm hoping that they live up to my imagination of them based on books and films.

For those of you travelling this summer, I hope you have a wonderful time and experience something worth writing home about!

Emma

Student travel: deciding where to go

As Alexandra pointed out in her recent blog post, exams are very nearly over. True, I’ve been sat here twiddling my thumbs for almost a week already, but now more and more students are crossing over into the realms of freedom, and a whole lot of you are probably wondering what to do next.

I mentioned a while back that a favourite among students when it comes to the monumentally huge summer break is to spend some time travelling.

This isn’t even exclusive to third-year graduates either; the summer is big enough to cover lots of new ground, even if you’re planning on heading back down here to Southampton in September.

If you’re like me, and libraries and textbooks have very much taken over your life as of late, a change of scenery is usually a pretty exciting idea. The only question that remains from here is ‘Where?’

It seems almost a silly question, but believe it or not, the world is pretty darn enormous, and thanks to this little thing called globalisation more recently, travelling to some of the more far-out destinations isn’t quite as difficult as you might think. Almost anything is on the cards; this is one of the only times in your life that you’re likely to have the freedom to completely up-sticks and wander the globe, so why not use it?

If the world is quite literally your oyster, how do you narrow it down enough to actually pull together a manageable trip? Sure, we’d all love to go everywhere, but time and money don’t usually prevail in the way we’d like them to.

Here are some things to consider when planning your trip:

With any luck, I’ll hopefully be finding myself back here in sunny Vancouver come the summer!

Desire

Like I’ve already said, this is likely to be one of the only times in your life you will have the ability to spread your wings and go where you want to go. Ask yourself: where is the one place on Earth that I’ve always wanted to travel to?

It might be Japan, it might be Peru, it might be Africa; everyone is different. Try not to fall into the same old student cycle of simply just going to the most popular destinations. True, a lot of students do go to Australia and Thailand, but that doesn’t mean that you have to if you’re interested in going somewhere else. Be creative and surprise yourself!

Contacts

This doesn’t just mean the people you’re travelling with (although it’s always a good idea to at least have a partner along for the ride!). Think about people you may know in other countries, and if you might be able to stay with them. It’ll cut the budget in half and the chances are you’ll form a great new/reignited friendship out of it too.

When I sat down to plan something for the summer, I started plotting the family I’m in touch with in the US and Canada and found a way to connect between four different cities. It might just be couch-surfing, but it’ll certainly give me a more authentic and a significantly cheaper travelling experience overall!

Budget

Sadly this ends up being the be-all and end-all of most trips. New Zealand might sound like a blast but the flights will likely set you back an entire year’s worth of rent, and the same goes for quite a few places. Have an idea in your head of how much money you’re able to spend/fundraise, and try to craft your trip realistically around that.

Some countries will be cheaper than others in terms of living costs (food etc.), but remember to factor in the money you might lose in exchange fees on currency or on tourist VISA applications.

Depending on what happens in next month’s referendum, Europe is a (potentially) cheap and beautiful alternative to world travel - Amsterdam is definitely worth a visit!

Still, with a decent amount of planning, you could find yourself living it up in an entirely different part of the world in a few months - certainly an exciting prospect if you’re still chained to a desk with deadlines looming.

Adventure calls!

Ben

Preparing for summer: CV tips, internships and holidays

At the moment all I can think about is exams and coursework, so in an effort to use this blog as a distraction from all that I thought I would write about something that we are all looking forward to; summer!

For those of us doing Masters Degrees, summer isn’t really the same because we don’t hand in our thesis until September. This means that the break isn’t really a break from work at all!

However, we still get to take time off and one of my favourite pastimes at the moment is booking this summer’s holiday to Italy with my partner. We are going to fly into Milan and then spend a week visiting Venice, Florence and then Rome before flying back to the UK.

I have spent absolutely hours looking at different websites trying to find the best value accommodation, which is no easy task given how popular these places are as tourist destinations! I have managed to find some gems by using AirBnB and looking at hostels on the outskirts of the cities close to the trains which means that you save a lot of money but only have to travel for ten minutes or so to be in the city centre, which I think is a worthy trade off!

After this little roam around Italy I’m heading to Alderney for eight weeks to work for the Chief Executive of Alderney council. If you haven’t heard of Alderney don’t worry, I hadn’t either before this opportunity presented itself! It’s a tiny island (population around 2,400) just off the north coast of France and you can only get there by plane from Southampton, rather conveniently for me.

I honestly don’t really know what to expect when I get there; they haven’t had an intern before but there is the promise of some really very interesting work to be getting on with so I’m pretty excited.

Summer internships are crucial for future jobs and if you haven’t managed to find one already, keep looking. The University hires hundreds of interns over the summer to work on various projects, and your personal tutor is worth talking to because they might know of something interesting that’s become available, or even have some work for you to do themselves!

As well as all this I am also preparing to start working for the Office for National Statistics in October. It seems crazy because I applied way back in November of last year and have only recently been offered the job and assigned a start date. Having a job sorted for when I finish everything is rather wonderful because it takes a lot of the stress out of summer.

However, if you are only just starting to look around, here are some useful tips:

1. Discuss your CV with your personal tutor before you finish university for good!

2. Apply to as many jobs as you can find, even if you don’t have all the required experience. Filling in applications is great practice as many employers now provide feedback on your application.

3. Phone up the person in charge of hiring new recruits and ask them for more information about what they are looking for. Sometimes web descriptions of job postings can be irritatingly vague and speaking to someone about what they want can be really helpful, and can help you decide whether it is something you want to do.

4. Sign up to LinkedIn. While there are discussions about whether or not it is beneficial, it’s free and can’t hurt. Plus it’s essentially an online CV which can be helpful when filling in job applications because you can just copy and paste sections from it!

Plus filling in the profile is a nice way to distract yourself for an hour

My best advice is to do something awesome over summer because, particularly for us postgrads, it’s probably the last chance to have a few totally relaxed weeks without having to worry about work for the rest of our lives – which is a pretty terrifying thought!

Cake – because it’s the only thing keeping me going right now!

Good luck to everyone still working on their exams. Don’t panic because it will all be over soon!

Emma

Out and about

It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that Southampton is quite small. Have you ever looked at a map of Southampton and thought it looks a lot bigger than it feels? I have, many times. In my head Southampton is everything between Bassett and Ocean Village, extending as far as Shirley to Swaythling – everything else, I never really used think about as Southampton.

Last weekend, I got to experience a bit more of Southampton; Romsey. I also got to see more of Portsmouth, which isn’t far away.

As I have mentioned before, you can go so many places around Southampton, (the New Forest, Bournemouth, Salisbury, Poole and Portsmouth for example). However, you don’t even need to go that far! Romsey is about a 20 minute drive from the city, but easily reachable without a car by train.

It is a cute little ‘town’ and to my understanding still a part of Southampton. We went to Romsey World of Water, which is actually a supplier for aquatic stuff like fountains. I doubt any students are going to put a fountain in their garden, but apart from that they have a lovely café there and everything from coral reefs to turtles that you can purchase. They also have a massive pond with lots of fish in it and the possibility of buying fish food for a pound, so you can feed them. We went on a very sunny Sunday, so perfect weather for a day out.

My boyfriend, James and I tried to feed the fish, but in the end we gave the fish food to the ducks.

Exam motivation right there - I want one of these in my future garden.

Last weekend also took me down to Portsmouth. We spent most of the day at Gunwharf Quays, which is an outlet shopping city where you can make a good bargain on items which I’m assuming most students can’t usually afford. To be honest, you don’t really need to buy anything, because there are several places you can sit down by the ocean and have a meal or a pint!

It was quite busy there on a Saturday as one would expect, but since you walk outside it was still pleasant.

Portsmouth is also reachable by train from Southampton Central station, tickets are often cheap and the journey is usually not more than thirty minutes.

Along the promenade at Gunwharf Quays

Let me know in the comments if you have other suggestions of local places I can explore!

Alexandra