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Jacob Page (12-19) Somehow, I am now a finalist. A couple lockdowns later and here we are. This year has got off to a much better start than last, and university life is resuming its regular programming. On the plus side, this means catching up with people and pubs that I haven't seen for a while; I've even enjoyed(ish) being back in a sadistically uncomfortable lecture theatre listening to academics drone on. On the downside, normal university life also involves the steady drip of suspicious- ly brown water that is leaking through my ceiling as I write this. Unfortunately, the rumours are true: I live below a bathroom. In a desperate bid to avoid my inevitable fate of starting a ‘career’ in the ‘real world’, I am going to be applying for a Masters in Amsterdam (I promise it's be- cause the course is sooo interesting). The Brexit caveat is that non-EU fees have jumped approximately 600%, and I am just one generation too distant to claim Irish citizenship (fair enough, considering I don't remember ever setting foot there). As a result, my attendance is dependent on me getting a fiercely compet- itive scholarship. The going will be tough as my competition includes, but is not limited to, a Syrian refugee with two degrees and 8 years of experience in human rights organisations. That being said, she was never president of the Dulwich College Geography Society, so I think I have the upper hand. If Amsterdam falls through, my dad recommends I become a regular at one of the Portuguese cafes in Stockwell, where the steady flow of pastries and coffee can keep me in blissful ignorance of ‘getting a job’, ‘earning a salary’, ‘paying taxes’ and all those other supposedly common things that working folk claim to exist... Harry Goodwin (14-19) I am now in my third year reading History at Peterhouse, Cambridge. I arrived in Cambridge in October 2019 after five very happy years at Dulwich, and was excited to enter a new world of gowns, supervisions and getting up as late as I like. Like most people, I had a few stumbles in my first year at university – but now that I am at the other end (and now that my morning routine has reverted to sanity), I am able to say that I have had a lot of fun. My degree is as challenging I expected and hoped. I covered eighteenth- century Britain and medieval Europe in my first year, before specialising in the history of political thought from Plato to Marx. I’m now doing a dissertation on seventeenth-century France and a Special Subject on Thucydides; next term, I’ll finish off the political-thought story in the twentieth century. Cambridge is really hard work, although my friends who do science degrees might be amused to hear me complain about long reading lists. Third year being the crunch point, I have even gone to a few lectures. When I am not studying, I edit The Cambridge Student, one of Cambridge University’s student newspapers and write for the Porter’s Log, Cambridge’s version of Private Eye. Next term, I will leave the former to take charge of the latter. I am hoping to become a real-world journalist when I graduate, and am currently applying to just about every single job listed on LinkedIn. I also play a bit of basketball with my mates, and go to the pub or the club when we have the time. We bought a TV so we could watch the football when pubs were shut during the second lockdown, and it’s pretty nice to just crash and watch the Prem all afternoon after a busy week. I won’t dwell on the ‘impact of Covid’. Two terms at home with Zoom supervisions wasn’t great, but by pandemic standards I am lucky to have had such problems to moan about. Now that it’s all over - right? – I feel that I’ve juiced the Cambridge orange as efficiently as I was ever going to. All that toil and stress during my Cambridge application – more testing, I must say, than anything I’ve done at Cambridge – was definitely worth it.
Olly Foster (08-19) A year in Durham impacted by COVID-19 was exciting, fun, yet stressful. It started off well with little or no restrictions in place and, admittedly, very little work to be done. This would change with a sudden flurry of essays to be completed by the end of the year and the beginning of the second national lockdown. Additionally, a law degree taught solely online would not help my motivation in an already solemn time. This would further be seen in my second term, where I wouldn’t be able to return to Durham until halfway through the term; separated from friends, stuck with my family, it wasn’t the ‘first-year experience’ I was promised, let alone deserved after a failed gap year. slightest transgressions against the rules; a rule of fear was imposed. The final term at Durham was more enjoyable, with exams being online and open book it relieved a lot of the stress that was building up from being trapped inside most days. Furthermore, with the weather improving and COVID rules becoming more relaxed I was able to enjoy Durham in a more representative view. Even returning to Durham for my second term was a mistake, with severe punishments handed out for the On a more positive note, I made sure to make the most out of my first year, meeting new friends and starting to investigate my future aspirations. I am currently applying for a year abroad to study Law at either Hong Kong University (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) or the East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL). Whilst my initial aim is to become a qualified solicitor in England and Wales, the idea of obtaining a dual qualification in Hong Kong is my ultimate aim with the prospect of practicing law in Hong Kong an added bonus. Furthermore, I am currently attempting to apply to a multitude of vacation schemes with the aim of securing work experience not only to make myself more employable but to also find what area of law, if even law, I want to practice when I eventually leave university and law school
Nathan Sparkes (12-19) The start of my third year at Exeter University has shown a lot of promise, encouraging a great deal of optimism amongst third years as we keep our fingers crossed for an uninterrupted season of sport which we have not yet experienced. The shift back to in-person teaching has been welcome (although the teacher’s banter will never live up to DC!) and I have been genuinely excited to be able to go onto campus and learn with my fellow geographers and actually see my dissertation advisor face-to-face. Socially my life is more or less controlled by my involvement in the university hockey club which has already provided some great memories, although I don’t think I’ll ever come across another centre back who could fill the role, on and off the pitch half as well as Jose Farara. My dissertation is looking at the effectiveness of digital activism, or more specifically aiming to understand how individuals interact with feminist content on Instagram and the processes involved in sharing content through a personal account (focusing on: how young people use social media to produce their identities, performativity and the ephemerality of posting something on your ’story’, which only stays up for 24 hours). At the moment I am trying to perform a balancing act between graduate scheme applications and university work which is proving to be quite tough but I’ve accepted it’s never going to be an easy task! All in all, it feels like normality has more or less resumed at Exeter, aside from the occasional lecturer requesting mask-wearing and the restrictions to how ‘outside’ we are allowed to be during our dissertation research. I am definitely looking forward to cracking on with my final year and making the most out of my university experience.
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