I'm not going to be all corny and say that my first year of uni has been amazing and an absolute dream. Without a doubt there have been some awesome moments but it was 100% made up of both good times and bad times. My experience won't be the same as other people's experiences both at Queen Mary and at their respective universities. So let me tell you a bit about my experience... This is probably going to be a long one, you should go get some snacks.
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| Hello MTV and welcome to my crib |
I started uni already on a low as I wasn't given student accommodation and had to go straight into dealing with the stress and bullshit that is house hunting. Finding a house in general is such an effort but oh my god I swear London is just so much worse. I was lucky (for the most part) that I happened to find a pretty awesome group of girls to live with, which made the experience of living away from home a lot easier. Our flat has an amazing location so being able to roll out of bed and rock up to lecture in like 5 minutes is great. Not that I actually did that though... it takes me at least 20 minutes to do my make up and have my vital coffee of the morning. I don't know if it's East London flats in general or just mine, but I swear everything that could have gone wrong in our flat, did. From a blocked toilet to no hot water, mould, leaking shit water coming through the ceiling and a broken fridge. Hopefully I never have to experience anything like that again.
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| Cringe, such cringe |
Freshers week. Ahh freshers week. It was pretty fun being able to go out in Central London and meeting people from loads of different unis. I made so many friends in the first month, but as the year continues I just started to realise that they were more acquaintances than friends. And now, they're not even that. That's kind of just how it works. You talk to everyone and anyone in Freshers because you're so excited to finally be at uni, but by the end of the year, you don't ever see or talk to them anymore. But four nights out back to back and my body was literally drained, I lost my voice, I had the flu, and life was just not great. But at least I had an excuse to lie in bed, eating ice cream and watching TV all day. It's not like university students have any time to the that right? Besides getting sick, I don't think I enjoyed freshers as much as other people did, and that's probably down to the fact that most people go crazy getting smashed and going clubbing till 4am everyday. But I did my crazy club years when I was 16 so I kind of felt like I was over that whole scene.
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| 1 of the 1000+ cheer photos I now have |
Just like every other fresher at the Fresher Fair, I signed up to god know's how many societies and never ever went to them. I eventually just unsubscribed to the emails. My bad. But the one society I did stick with was Cheerleading and man, I am so glad I did. Through cheer I have met so many people, some (hopefully) lifelong friends and of course, my boyfriend. It's become impossible for me to walk around campus and not see at least one Cheerleader (most likely wearing at least one item of QMA merch no doubt). Cheer is tough, there's no doubt about that. We train a lot, and hard, and it makes your bank about cry, but it's totally worth it. I would 100% recommend it to anyone if your uni, or prospective unis have teams - try it out! It's not at all about waving pompom about and cheering people on. As a flyer, I had to get over my fears of heights and falling, and it took me like half the year to actually get confident. Cheer makes you strong, both physically and mentally. My body ached everyday, even on the days I didn't have cheer, my body still ached. I had to go the physio because of so many problems and injuries but that's probably just a reflection of me being clumsy af. I wouldn't say there's been any significant low points or bad moments of cheer, but it fluctuates. I had good weeks and bad weeks. Some training sessions I would hit everything, sometimes I would fall from everything. But I guess the only thing that matters is that I didn't fall when it came to competing. Competing was a definite good moment in the year. Even though my team didn't win, it was still so much fun and exhilarating. It's scary as fuck, but the adrenaline kicks in and I'm don't even have to think about what I'm doing anymore, it just comes naturally, and that's a pretty amazing feeling. I can't wait to do it again next year.
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| May not be as great a progression as others but it's still more than I ever thought I'd be able to do |
I'm not going to say much about my course/work because I'm leaving that for another post. But one thing I know for sure is that I hate essays. Or to be more specific, I hate every single question we got given to write essays on. Honestly, they couldn't have chosen more difficult, pointless and ambiguous questions. But on the plus side, it's nice that I only have classes 3 days a week, and they're rarely full days, so having so much time off is really nice. It may seem by me saying that, that English students do fuck all, but seriously, the amount of reading we get set isn't even
possible the read in the time given, especially if you want to have a life. I barely read anything that was set, which made my life very difficult when it came to actually doing my coursework. I used to think that 2,000 words was
such a long essay, but now that's pretty much the standard. I thought things would change at uni, that things would be more serious and it would be harder to slack, but Sparknotes is still my closest and most trusted friend.
The last thing I'm going to mention is London. One of the best parts of my first year - and without a doubt probably going to be one of the best parts of my two years to come - was being able to explore London. From Kensington Gardens to Victoria Park, cat cafes and Soho, London has kept me very busy. It literally has everything and there are still so many things places I want to visit (mainly restaurants who am I kidding).
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| Breakfast in Victoria Park |
