Newcastle University is distinct from other UK universities in that it has one of the highest proportions of students nationwide who come from the local area, meaning that a lot of us already have our social set, favourite coffee place & bars for the cheapest drinks nipped in the bud. Not being from here, I remember the first time I walked up Northumberland Street all wide-eyed with my small bag of worldly possessions. I didn’t have any of those things early on and it was at times quite daunting watching others move effortlessly and unencumbered in a way befitting those who have already had a lifetime to acclimate to their surroundings.
If I’m being honest, societies were a bit of a disappointment in the first year because most of the ones I joined did stuff infrequently and when they did, it was often heavily oriented around drinking to the exclusion of meaningful social enlightenment. I also found that coming from the south, people would take one look at me and ask where I come from. Most people did it innocuously but some immediately asked me if I was a Tory, if I liked Margret Thatcher and introductory conversations sometimes felt like subtle interrogations preemptively searching for sources of political disagreement.
I don't know about you but I can't think of anything that's actually good value for money (aside from drinks) where you get to pull out that student card & save money.
Before Uni I was led to believe that I would unlock a world of student discounts and that everything would become 20% cheaper at the flash of my student card. In my experience, I’m only really getting student discounts on alcohol, things which are at least 30% more expensive than they really should be or ultra-processed food I would never want anyway (Dominos fits both criteria). I don't know about you but I can’t think of anything that’s actually good value for money (aside from drinks) where you get to pull out that student card & save money. Is there a student discount on Aldi shopping, on that £32 Ryanair return flight to Vienna or maybe for the Megabus down to Leeds? Didn’t think so.
Some aspects of the uni experience are certainly disappointing. However, I’m slowly realizing that being here unlocks unique experiences and allows me to network with a sheer breadth of people I probably won’t have access to in a workplace down the line. If I was ten years into a drab engineering career and suddenly decided I wanted to go into journalism, I don’t think the Daily Mail would let me write for them unless I was well connected. Thankfully, I don’t need to be well connected to write for the Courier because it’s insulated within the university ecosystem which is somewhat less serious and consequential than the outside world. And yet, university can be super serious because those things we do in our free time could define what we do in ten years.