These are all things that I’ve heard about while going through my university journey. I think I’ve encountered the typical student experience throughout my time here. The first year of friends and constant get-togethers. Then comes the difficult second year where your degree becomes so much harder, the friendship groups begin to splinter for a variety of reasons, and you end the second semester in a very different place than where you started the first.
all these memories, whether big or small, bad or good, are all tied to the city of Newcastle.
And then, with any luck, you reach your third year: you barely recognise yourself from when you first set foot in a lecture hall nearly three years ago, but you kind of like it that way. You’ve changed, you’ve grown, you’ve adjusted to adult life - but you still can’t bear getting up for a 9am.
I won’t bore you with the details on how my three years at university have met all these criteria, nor will I remind myself of some days I’d rather forget, but everything in my time at university has left an impression on me.
I can still fixate on the tiniest little memories. I can remember the feeling of going to bed in first year, and being amazed I couldn’t hear any noise from the kitchen despite being in the room next to it. I can remember those first lectures, wondering why on Earth it was possible to make a lecture about note-taking last a whole hour. I can remember the almost daily trips to the Co-Op for sweet treats that I probably shouldn’t have been wasting money on.
I’m now so much more appreciative of the little moments in life.
But all these memories, whether big or small, bad or good, are all tied to the city of Newcastle. I may not have thought much about the city that was surrounding me, as someone who is not a party animal and certainly not interested in football, but I’ll be damned if I won’t miss living in this city. A city that was always a place my family would go to on day trips has become a home, a city that was once just Eldon Square and the Quayside has now become a whole host of pubs, libraries, evening walking routes and, most importantly, people.
I was recently in a pub by the quayside playing cards with some friends from this very editorial team, and I realised that this is something I never do back home. I don’t know whether meeting up for drinks and cards is something I’ll do all the time when I go home. My friends’ lives are all going off in different and wonderful directions, and I’m really proud of them all. But when the times line up, I’ll be asking them if they want to meet up more often.
And that’s the main thing I’ve taken from my time at university. My relationship with the world and people around me has altered massively, and I’m now so much more appreciative of the little moments in life. I don’t want to say “You can take the man out of the city, not the city out of the man,” but if there’s a more fitting phrase, I don’t know it.