Im Finally a University Student

Hello, world! (or should that be System.out.println(“Hello, world!”);)

It’s only in writing this blog, that it’s finally hit me that I’m a university student!? I know this may seem strange.. I’ve shopped for myself and cooked for myself, done my own laundry, gone to lectures, done lab work.. The list goes on, but still, it’s only now that I’ve realized that I’m a real university student.

This may be in part due to the ridiculous number of activities that have been provided by the students union and the department (ECS), which have managed to take up all of my time. The Union put events on every night for 2 weeks, ranging from club nights at the Cube nightclub, to quiz and curry nights, and freebie fairs.

ECS have organized a series of events, which are organized under the JumpStart umbrella. JumpStart is sponsored by IBM and provides a range of activities for freshers at ECS. The main event is called the town challenge, where the ECS freshers are let loose on Southampton.

Whilst the challenges were a lot of fun, they also introduce you to some aspects of University life, such as finding your way on your own, working in a team, and conforming to deadlines.

Now that Freshers Week (and also Freshers Fortnight) have finished, the lectures have begun. This is such a rapidly different way of learning than in secondary school. The self-led approach, with an emphasis on challenging everything you’re told, is a refreshing change from the “exam technique” driven learning from the last few months leading up to a levels.

It was really fun collecting £100 worth of free books from Waterstones (thanks to ECS), but it’s starting to dwell that we’re meant to actually read the books.. That’s a lot of reading 🙁