Trains, trains and Ziggy Stardust

Today marks the start of the new semester and a new selection of modules for everyone to dig their teeth into. Although the first couple of days will mainly consist of introductory lectures outlining syllabuses, recommending texts and detailing the various methods of assessment, I’m sure by the end of the week my workload will have returned to its normal trend. The module I’m most intrigued about (albeit with equal amounts of apprehension) is my computing labs course, which I opted to take instead of the traditional practical physics labs. I’m guessing this module will not be too dissimilar from the kinds of things that fellow blog writer Robin deals with in his course and hence I may be calling upon his help sometime in the near future!

Ever since I finished my exams over a week ago, time has simply flown by. It’s rare for a student to receive the same freedom during term time as you have over the summer break and as such I really tried to make the most of it.

Last Monday, as I mentioned in my previous blog, I travelled across to Wales to investigate a graduate level medical physics course, which I found to be really useful and has definitely helped me to understand where my future might take me. The most surprising thing I learnt was just how high the competition per place is, so although I would really love to stay in Southampton, I think I’d settle for any offer of a placement.

As if an eight hour round train journey wasn’t enough, a couple of days later I got on another train to go home for the weekend. On Saturday we travelled up to Barnet for my Grandad’s 80^th birthday meal, where nearly everyone from that side of the family was present, including my Aunt who I hadn’t seen for about seven years. Needless to say it was fantastic to see them all again!

Tonight I am going out to celebrate the end of exams with some of friends, but bizarrely, it’ll be as part of a joint History and English social! I should probably mention that both my twin sister and my girlfriend study History at Southampton, so naturally this is not the first History social I have taken part in. We are heading into Bedford Place to go to a club called Ninety Degrees, which I have never actually been to in my two and a half years at Southampton! It should be a fun night.

As with all good socials, it has a fancy dress theme – historical figures for the Historians and fictional characters for the English students. Considering I was technically neither, I opted to go down the music history route (since that’s what I know best), eventually deciding upon David Bowie’s alter ego Ziggy Stardust! The great thing about my choice is that it has both historical and fictional elements, so I will be able to fit in with both crowds!

Getting prepared for my Ziggy Stardust transformation

Before I went home on Thursday, a couple of housemates and I went into the city centre to find our fancy dress outfits for the night out. It’s not every day that three men go shopping and between them manage to buy a flat cap, white tights, neon orange fishnet gloves and a pink wig! Since we are all part of the fancy dress society, we thought we really need to show these History and English students how to do fancy dress properly and start semester two in style!

James

Time to celebrate!

It’s finally the end of semester one! Exams are over, assignments are handed in and most people are enjoying the weekend off before we start all over again next week. 

My exams finished on Tuesday, so I’ve spent most of the week relaxing and catching up with various things which got pushed to the bottom of the pile during the exam period. It’s scary to think about the fact that my penultimate semester has finished, and that I’ve only got around four months left here at Southampton! I’m excited to see what the next term will bring, especially as I’m taking a module in another subject, Geography, for the first time. Combined honours students like myself don’t often have the opportunity to take electives, as they’re known here, so when I found out I was able to this year, I jumped at the chance. It will be challenging – different subjects often require very different writing styles – but I’m sure it will add lots of positives to my university experience. Plus, the topic of the module, Geographies of Nature, is directly relevant to my dissertation, which I hope will prove helpful.

The highlight of last week, as mentioned by Robin, had to be SUSU’s Petting Zoo, one of several events put on by the Students’ Union to help relieve exam stress. I loved meeting the dogs, and my friend Emily got to hold a guinea pig!

Meeting these little guys definitely cheered us up!

As I said in my last post, I moved up to Southampton during my exams, which has been a complete godsend. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve still had early mornings and late nights, but at least I could leave the library safe in the knowledge that my bed was only a 10 minute walk, rather than a 40 minute drive! My new housemates made me feel very welcome, and even came and celebrated the end of my exams with me, with dinner and drinks at Turtle Bay. I’ve grown quite accustomed to living in Southampton again, so it will be quite strange to go back to Bournemouth, although I’ve missed being able to turn the heating on whenever I want! The luxuries of living at home!

Turtle Bay – One of my favourite Southampton eateries

I’m currently on my way up to London for a friend’s birthday party. It will be a great chance to catch up with all my uni friends and celebrate the end of exams all over again. I’m especially looking forward to seeing Florence, who wrote for Life at Southampton last year, as I haven’t seen her since September! 

I’ve got all my journey essentials!

I’m also planning on catching up on some well deserved rest. Having not sat exams at Southampton for over a year, I’d forgotten how much it can take it out of you, but I know all the hard work will be worth it in the end.

Tayler

Stress less fest

And, with the final tick of the clock at the front of the exam hall, that, as they say, was that!

As with James, Tayler and Kristin, recent proceedings for me have been dominated by the presence of exams and, although fortunately I’ve had a much smaller number than usual (just the two!) because my module choices were more heavily weighted towards coursework-based assessment (much better for someone who personally hates exams!), there was still the lingering prospect of this set counting for the biggest proportion of my degree to date, being my first batch in third year – so no pressure, then!

But thankfully, despite the usual hefty amount of panic, worry and general neuroticism along the way, I’ve come out on the other side of them, and now have a few days to sit back, relax and enjoy a short spell of responsibility-lifted freedom and celebration – well, while working towards the Third Year Project, that is!

January can often be a tough spell for everyone involved, in truth, with lecturers having to set the papers (while keeping questions proportionately fair and challenging!), students feeling the pressure to make the most of any and all potential revision time, and the University itself seeing an influx of demand, diligence and drive on behalf of the student body – just try getting a desk in Hartley Library during exam season without firstly waking up at crazy o’ clock in the morning and you’ll see what I mean!

Yet simultaneously it’s such spells which I often find can bring out the best in University life as well, with many a person on my Software Engineering course, for example, ready and willing to clarify any difficulties others might have with material (in turn testing and benefitting both parties’ knowledge), while others make a habit of contributing their revision notes towards an online shared resource which puts the more difficult concepts in plain English and helps everybody on their way – particularly handy when faced with rows of seemingly impenetrable Greek letters, for example!

And the support of fellows isn’t just academic, with the spirit of revision inducing ‘study groups’ within my household where we all get together in somebody’s room, with laptops, textbooks and notepads in hand, and we stick on a film which we’ve all seen a hundred times (to give some background noise without distracting us!) and work for a couple of hours at a time, knowing that the presence of one another working hard will force us to keep going even when distractions are abound. Well, at least until the need to procrastinate becomes too much, I guess, and we end up watching the film!

Plus, the Students’ Union is frequently on the lookout to make sure that its members (and that’s everyone who attends the University – you automatically become a member when you enrol!) are also well supported and coping with potential exam stress, with the annual ‘Stress Less Fest’ events playing a huge part in making sure everyone has an enjoyable and relaxing interruption, on a daily basis, to the pressures the season brings.

This time round, the happening which I went along to took place just inside the main Union building, in the form of a visit from a local petting zoo, featuring some fantastically fluffy rabbits and guinea pigs, which even included ducks, chickens, and two extremely excitable yet happy dogs – it certainly brought back my own memories of living on a farm!

The dogs had a clever tactic to ensure they received their fair share of attention – winding their leads around people’s legs!

Other activities throughout the week included dance sessions, lengthy screenings of some student favourite comedy series at Union Films (the Union’s very own cinema), as well as tea and cake sales and free fruit handouts, providing a great motivation to put down the books for an hour or two and remember to have a moderate amount of play to compliment the necessary work.

It’s strange to think that for many of my friends at University, this was the penultimate exam season, particularly after growing up with their ritualistic January appearances throughout the educational system. But with graduation on the horizon for them, I know plenty of people are excited to take the benefits that being tested in such a way brings, like the ability to concentrate on achieving their goals and getting the marks they want, and apply it in the working world. Personally, however, I’ve got another year after this one – so plenty of time to worry about the real world at a later date!

As for what’s up next, after a few days’ rest I’ll be throwing myself into intensive rehearsals for the next show I’m involved in; after all, Showstoppers’ (the musical theatre society) production of Little Shop of Horrors, a B-movie style horror-comedy bonanza which features murder, man-eating plants and a hefty amount of musical cheese, has its opening night in less than two weeks, which is a terrifying enough thought in itself! The first of a number of sneak previews has just been released – check it out below!

I’ll be sure to write about Little Shop more at the time but, for now, it seems like everything is settling into place for another busy semester two, following on from a challenging, yet wholly enjoyable, semester one. And given the nature of University life, I really wouldn’t want it any other way!

Robin

Light at the end of the tunnel

Three exams down and one to go! My last exam for this semester is on Wednesday and then I’ll finally be able to relax for a couple of days (well almost, I will still have dance classes and several rehearsals to attend!). And truth be told, I always find myself having something to do while I’m at uni. I’ve now also made plans to meet up with a couple of my old flatmates from first year which will be a lot of fun. One of them helped me a lot over the summer while I attended a three week intensive Mandarin language training course for beginners. While my mum does know some Mandarin, she never thought of teaching my sister or me. I suppose since my dad’s first language is Swedish it was just easier if we all spoke English at home. (He never taught my sister or me any Swedish until we moved to Sweden when I was twelve.) Anyway, I’ve always though that knowing several languages was very valuable (and cool!), so I tried my best to secure a place on the course, which only had a limited number of places available. The course was funded by the Confucius Institute, which meant we were lucky enough to be given the lessons and learning material for free! Our teacher was super enthusiastic and very encouraging, I’m so grateful I was given the opportunity to take part. By the end of the three week course our final task was to give an entire presentation in Mandarin and this is where my old flatmate came in. He was born in China and had a good knowledge of Mandarin, so he was able to help me a lot, especially with my pronunciation which was (and still is) terrible! If I was to compare learning Swedish and Mandarin, Mandarin is hands down much harder. (I know living in the country of the language you are trying to learn does make it a lot easier but I think that even if I hadn’t lived in Sweden for seven years, Mandarin would still be much harder). Since I rarely use Mandarin in my daily life, I am beginning to forget a lot of what I worked so hard to learn over the summer. I’d actually like to continue to build on my knowledge because I think it would be a very useful language to know and it would make communicating with many of my relatives on my mother’s side a lot easier. So once exams are over I plan on revising what I learnt over the summer. My former flatmate has even agreed to continue to help me learn more Mandarin. I suppose he’ll at least get a good laugh seeing as my pronunciation resembles how an infant would speak (his words not mine). Nevertheless, I am excited to get back into it and grateful for the help.

Me and the other students who took part in the summer course, after receiving our certificates.

I’m also excited to start new modules once semester two begins. However, I think once I’m finished with my last exam I’m going to give my options another think over. I have quite a lot of freedom on my course to choose the modules which I find most interesting and to create my own path (biology is very broad). This is a luxury but it’s also a bit of pressure. It forces you to make decisions about your future and to really think about what YOU want to do. I’m still trying to decide which area of biology I’m most passionate about. I may even want to take a module completely unrelated to my course. In any case I’ll be sure it give it some thought once my last exam is over. Also related to my course, the Biosoc (Biological Sciences Society) committee have arranged for Simon Watt from Inside Nature’s Giants to come to Southampton and talk about life behind the scenes of filming the programme. I attended a number of really interesting and inspiring seminars from various guest speakers last year so I’m excited to see what this year will bring.

Photo of me holding a model of a baby (used for special effects) after attending a talk Faking Science for TV from David Barlow (who has worked on programmes including Life on Earth and Fight for Life) on how scientific research can be used in special effects.

Anyway, it’s back to the books for me! The next time you hear from me I will have finished my last exam… I can’t wait!

Kristin

End of exams

That most unique of days has arrived. The day when your exams are over and you have a new sense of freedom. Perhaps I’m over exaggerating, but the post-examination feeling is definitely one of the best in the student world, especially because this year I finished at the end of the first exam week, leaving me the whole of the second week to relax and enjoy some well-earned lie-ins!

I generally find I cope with the stress of the exam period quite well and I don’t allow it to take over my life, but I am definitely glad I can finally pack away my revision notes and my coloured pens. Overall I felt my three exams went very well and that all the time I spent revising over Christmas was put to good use.

I also want to put the time I have off next week to good use.

My first plan is to travel to Wales next Monday to attend an open day for a graduate level medical physics course. As I mentioned in one of my past blogs, I am torn between becoming a teacher or going into medical physics once I finish my degree, and this event will hopefully allow me to get a clearer picture of where my future might take me. The course has a duration of three years and focuses on clinical training as well as theory, with the added advantage of coming with a salary. Overall it sounds like a brilliant opportunity.

At the end of next week my family are having a large gathering for my Grandad’s 80th birthday meal. Apart from the accustomed “you’ve grown” comments, it will be great to catch up with members of my family, some of whom I haven’t seen for many years.

Sibling love - Our last big family get together was just before Christmas 2012.

On top of that I can’t wait to get the band back up and running, which has taken a back seat in the last couple of months due to us all having other commitments, namely full time jobs or, as in my case, university. Hopefully we’ll manage to book time in a rehearsal space next week and get ourselves back up to speed, and try out some new songs that we have written in our time apart.

One thing you do tend to neglect over revision time is exercise and unfortunately this year it has been no different. If you read my posts regularly you will know I try to be as active as possible, playing a variety of different sports and I can’t wait to get back into the fitness groove, which I will start up again by trying to go swimming every day next week. I also can’t wait to get back to playing in the intramural badminton league and to try and pick up some more points before the Easter break.

As I’m writing this I am just finishing off the last of my Christmas chocolate stash, which has helped me through many long afternoons of revision. Definitely time to turn my attention back to sports and exercise I think…

James

Exam season

One week back and exam season is well underway. I’ve spent most of the days since my last post in the library studying, and Hartley Library is starting to resemble a second home, something which all students can relate to I’m sure. I’m currently in the middle of a four day takeaway exam for my History module. We were able to access the paper at 10am on Monday morning, and have until Thursday afternoon to complete it. It’s my first time sitting an exam of this type and I’ve got to say, I much prefer it to the traditional closed-book exam. If only they were all like this! I’ve got another next Tuesday which is worth 100% of the module – a whopping three hours of writing. But thankfully that will be me done for the semester. I’d love to say I’m looking forward to a break, but my dissertation won’t write itself! Luckily, I’m extremely interested in my topic, and am actually thoroughly enjoying researching and writing the first few paragraphs. It’s all about the world food system, and I’m a total food addict, so it suits me down to the ground.

The joys of revision!

I’m moving up to Southampton tomorrow to stay at a friend’s house until my exams are finished. She doesn’t have any (lucky for some!) so is off on holiday to Egypt. I’m very jealous that she’ll be in the sun whilst I’m working away, but extremely grateful to her for the bed, and to her housemates for putting up with me. At least it will mean no more 5am starts for a while – 7 o’clock is practically a lie in for me now!

I’ve also managed to get out for a few runs too – my next half marathon is getting ever closer and training is starting to step up a gear. I was worried that it would be difficult fit in training around revision, but so far it’s actually working out very well. Getting to the gym or out for a run is a welcome break, and often increases my energy levels and helps me to concentrate and work more effectively. The weather hasn’t been too good, though, so some more sunshine would be great!

Still managing to get a workout in!

I have managed to find some time, in between revision, to continue researching my options for next year. I’ve just sent off an application for International Citizen Service (ICS), a development programme funded by the British government’s Department for International Development, which works with a variety of different charities and organisations. If I am accepted, I will become a team leader on a project somewhere in Asia, Africa or South America for six months. I’ve had some volunteering experience before whilst working in Indonesia and I would absolutely love to expand on this, and hopefully in a brand new location. I’m always looking for the next adventure, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Volunteering in Indonesia a few summers ago

I’m also looking into master’s degrees in London as another option, although I’m not entirely sure how I would go about funding one – I suppose I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. Either way, plans for next year are slowly starting to take shape, and it’s very exciting.

Tayler

Welcome to the real world

One of my favourite things about my course, Software Engineering, in Southampton is the way it will sometimes engage you with its fair share of theory and skill-based learning in laboratories and lecture theatres, but simultaneously often it just tends to throw you into real-life situations and challenge you to learn enough on your own to stay afloat – with help on offer if needed, of course!

And so the case was proven in just the one week since I returned from Christmas holidays, stuffed with food and decidedly sleepy every day, which became a bit of a culture shock when I had to start waking myself up early enough to go straight into the thick of things! As ever with third year it’s been a tricky week at times, but one which, looking back, has ultimately felt very fulfilling indeed, both from an academic perspective, but also a developmental (not to mention useful for the CV!) view as well.

It began in a bit of a haze with the need to finish off a group project for an early-in-the-week deadline – well, there go those new year’s resolutions (although I’m claiming I’m still keeping to them on a technicality)! The initial challenge, set out a couple of months ago, was to formulate ideas for, design, develop and then pitch an innovative web application to potential business clients, with several technical requisites demanding that you pick up a whole host of skills in the process, including expertise in a couple of programming languages (namely Python and JavaScript) and an understanding of the backbone of such applications. Needless to say, I’m now taking the code that makes my email inbox accessible a whole lot less for granted!

We were given several introductory lectures to the concepts and languages early in the semester to give us enough of a footing to fill in the rest for ourselves, and were then set on our way. As we were in self-selected groups, the variation in people’s prior experience and knowledge was quite significant, with myself being a total beginner to web application development (although I did already know plenty about web design and Python, at least!), so to be put in an entirely fresh developmental context was initially a huge challenge, and one which required me to… *shudder*… actually take out a book from the Hartley Library (not an activity frequently undertaken in Software Engineering, where research tends to be more journal-based), ahh!

However, the freeform nature of the assignment meant that we as a group were all working towards building a technology that we knew we would enjoy making and, fingers crossed if it ever worked, using! So, at the beginning of the week, with a few loose ends to tie up as the work levels undertaken over Christmas started to flag a little towards the end (it’s an accepted truth that working over the Christmas holidays is practically impossible!), we spent a number of hours in computer laboratories as a team, making sure that our application could do everything we wanted it to do before submission – hopefully, all things being well, without crashing!

We were then presented with the challenge of showcasing our work in a professional demonstration to the mock “clients” assessing the application, and thankfully all seemed to go well. I’m not going to disclose exactly what the project did at this stage, mainly because at the pitch we received encouragement to potentially take it forward commercially – we thought it might be quite innovative ourselves – so fingers crossed this is the first place that you’re reading about the next big thing! If not, however, we’d gratefully take getting a decent mark in its stead – so here’s hoping!

On top of the web app project, I also had the small matter of an academic conference to chair on behalf of my coursemates, lecturers and other invited guests. One of my modules in the first semester, named “Interactive Multimedia Systems”, took a rather different approach to its imparting of knowledge; instead of the traditional lecture and lab-based assessments which make up most courses, we were encouraged and assessed throughout on our contributions to an entirely student-organised conference event, which was to cover topics surrounding the world of interactive multimedia like gaming, interfaces, mobile technologies, video screens and so on, in turn reflecting similar real-world events. These contributions manifested themselves in the forms of contributing an original and self-studied research paper (mine being on the topic of classifying addiction to multimedia), peer reviewing others’, and then presenting it via the medium of a poster pitch to guests and the public (and fielding resulting questions).

The set-up for the annual Interactive Multimedia Conference at ECS, 2014 edition! (Credit: Matheus Beleboni)

For the extra challenge, however (and because I don’t know how to say no to things, it seems!), I volunteered at the beginning of the process to chair the “conference committee”, a team of six brilliant and enterprising students who all took on various organisational roles for the main event itself, successfully bringing in, over the course of three months (and with guidance when needed from our lecturers), sponsorship, keynote speakers, refreshments (thankfully covered by the University – although my housemates ended up benefiting from the leftovers!) and advertising, in turn undertaking all necessary administration and booking a suitable venue for it, as well as formulating a programme for the day designed to give everyone the chance to demonstrate their findings.

The poster pitch session allowed us all to wander around and find out more about one another’s work – there was some truly fascinating stuff on offer! (Credit: Matheus Beleboni)

In truth it took up a greater amount of time than I’d perhaps expected (so yet another degree distraction!) – particularly finding a space to host more than fifty people for five or six hours, crikey! – but it was a tremendous experience and was hugely enjoyable throughout, working closely with an enthusiastic and creative set of people to deliver as professional an event as we could muster, particularly when, with all the preparation done, we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labours on the satisfying and fascinating day of the conference itself.

On top of that, as Chair, I was tasked with being the one to stand up and make the opening and closing addresses, running proceedings and introducing each speaker as their turn arrived – granting me the opportunity to tailor the old stand-up comedy set to a Computer Science audience, amongst other things! Although I found it a bit nerve-racking at first playing host to the whole event, particularly in terms of trying to make sure everything kept to time (and when I knew my contribution was being assessed!), once I grew into it I found I was having a fantastic time with my fellow committee members, which proved that when thrown into such situations, you can get the most out of them by just going for it as confidently as possible, a lesson I hope to take forward the next time a presenting opportunity rears its head!

Despite being a little nervous at first, I had a brilliant time in the Chair/Presenting role for the conference! (Credit: Matheus Beleboni)

Moreover, students and staff alike all had a great time getting to ask people about their work, learning aplenty about some exciting new technologies (discovering more about autostereoscopy, or ‘glassless 3D’, was my favourite – brilliant work, Andy Davies!) from coursemates, as well as explaining and debating the conclusions of our own with passers-by, which, to my surprise, I found was very enjoyable indeed, although I felt like I was talking at a hundred miles an hour to try and fit it all into a succinct pitch! Nonetheless, if the event and indeed course was a true reflection of the process of contributing towards and participating in an academic conference (and graduates from the course have commented so in previous years), then sign me up for another – I had a blast!

So on the whole, it’s been as hectic a start as ever in Southampton, but one which has been hugely fulfilling as always, gifting me several opportunities already to taste the oncoming professional world in a couple of different contexts, in turn arming me with a number of skills, experiences and embellishments to the CV along the way. Despite the initial challenge of being thrown into such situations, finding a way to get the most of them has enabled myself, and many others, to draw the best from ourselves – and, strange as it may seem, enjoy doing so!

Let’s hope the same can be said for the onrushing exam period, I guess!

Robin