Tag: degree

See you later!

See you later!

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As I write this, it’s 30th June 2021, and it’s the last day of mine and my housemate’s tenancy for our second year of University. When we first moved in, it came at the end of an intense 5 months for the entire world; we’d been robbed of our third term of first year by the coronavirus pandemic, and we were moving in not really knowing what our second year would look like. Some of us came straight away, but it took until September/October for us to have pretty much a full house. First term was absolutely riddled with lockdowns and being ill with coronavirus, though we still managed to have some hectic nights-out before everything shut and make our university house start to feel like our home. We even cooked a Christmas dinner and got all dressed up to feel some semblance of normality – shout out to Rish’s brief stint as a mixologist. Then second term came and we had to STUDY. There were countless library trips, hours spent staring at laptops, withering attention-spans, and a whole lot of delirious laughter in between some snowball fights and getting lost in the woods as we searched for some alpacas. Obviously, we also had plenty of seshes, but that’s standard Lavender House activity.

Finally, we got our first summer term at university together. The exam period was exhausting, but it came and went pretty quickly overall, and I must say that sitting next to each other as we all attempted completely different exams was surprisingly enjoyable…Though not as enjoyable as when we finished and were able to just relax and spend time with each other.

Completing a year of university during a pandemic has been a real struggle for my friends and I at points. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I’ve felt moments of intense physical and emotional exhaustion, boredom, despondency, and isolation. But through all of that, we managed to laugh together every single day.

I was speaking to one of my housemates the other day about it, and we were saying just how strange it is that we come to university and we meet all of these people, and make all of these memories, then we all go off into the world and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see each other again. Here, I probably sound super dramatic, and you’re probably wondering why I’m getting so sentimental when I haven’t even graduated, but next year is my year abroad so a lot of my friends will graduate before I come back, and also a little sentimentality wouldn’t hurt the English once in a while. After all, as much as we shy away from deep or intense emotion, it is true that we may never know what becomes of these people we’ve come to really care for in the past couple of years.

For me, if it weren’t for my university friends, then I don’t know how much I would’ve kept up with these blogs, or how confident I would’ve felt in making a podcast or being on the radio, and I most definitely would NOT have walked on a stage in front of everyone at our college fashion show. They’ve helped me to stop slut-shaming myself if I get drunk and feel like sleeping my with someone. They’ve let me cry to them about how difficult my degree is more times then they probably could’ve been bothered with, and they’ve forgiven my occasional tendencies towards passive aggression. But most of all, they’ve made me feel safe and loved, and they’ve made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

So whilst I know I will see many of you again, I wanted to take a second to give you some love as we all move out and go on to the next bit – whether that be a final year at university, a year abroad, a placement year, a masters degree, or the start to life as a university graduate. Regardless of how often we see each other again though, I’m going to steal the words of a friend I met and said goodbye to in Ukraine two years ago, and say that in the moments when I miss seeing you all the time, it’ll cheer me up to know that you exist somewhere.

See you later my loves x

I’ve changed my mind

I’ve changed my mind

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do something brainy when I grew up. (This was obviously briefly interrupted by the oh-my-god-when-I’m-16-I’ll-go-on-The-X-Factor-moment, but then we don’t really need to give 7 year old me that much attention here…) I always knew that I was good at academia, and that I’d probably go to university and end up being a professional nerd. But as I’ve gone through the education system and I’ve learnt to hold my own as a young woman, I realise that I’ve been listening to those good old societal constructs again in telling myself that a profession determines my level of intelligence.

But before I go on to my potentially sickening motivational speech where I tell you to fOlLoW yOuR dReAms and dO wHaT yOu lOve, I’ve got to first acknowledge how successful we are at convincing ourselves, and our children that we need to know exactly how our life is going to play out from the first time someone asks us what we’re going to do after school. And it’s not that I think we should stop asking children these questions, it’s only that we take their answers way too seriously. We categorise careers and people according to what subjects they were good at at school, or their ability to write an essay, or to solve an equation. Yes, certain jobs require a level of academic ability for you to succeed, but intelligence isn’t limited to your academic success.

Before I started my degree, I was convinced I knew exactly what job I wanted to go into. I thought I was going to come out of Durham University and somehow weasel my way into a job in translation in the music industry – don’t ask me how I expected to get there, but that’s what I wanted to do. However, I’ve come to realise that I don’t want language to be the overriding aspect of my future career. Don’t get me wrong, I love languages, and I hope to continue learning new ones for the rest of my life. But I realise that I’m 21, and what I love doing more than anything right now, is writing these blogs, making my podcasts, and interviewing musicians on the radio.

So even though it’s not a ‘conventional’ choice, or something the education system taught me exactly how to get into, it’s something that I have a real passion for, and without indulging in my ego too much, it’s something that I know I could be really good at. Oh, and it’s kind of ideal for the whole physical disability situation because standing for long periods of time or walking long distances isn’t really a problem when all you have to do is sit behind a microphone or a laptop…so you know, it’s kind of a medical choice? But I digress.

I might only be really young, but my age is my power, because I truly can decide to do whatever I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll get it completely wrong, but if I do then at least I tried! Plus, if it does all go tits up, then I’ll always have that cheeky Durham University degree in Japanese Studies with a bit of history, history of art, and Korean thrown in for extra spice on the CV.

So f*** it, let’s give it a go.

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 3 Comments

My experience of University so far has been a mixed bag. Luckily, the overriding emotions are positive, but there are also elements that I really don’t love that much.

Last Thursday I cried when I read some feedback given to me by my language teacher about a practice paper I’d spent hours on. I’d done the paper the first time, received the marks and was disappointed. So, I spent around 8 hours this week translating every word of Japanese on it with my textbooks and notes. Then I redid my answers and rewrote the essay because I wanted to make sure that I knew how to do better. So I cried at the second lot of feedback my teacher gave me because after all of that time and effort, it was better but it still wasn’t right.

Oh and don’t think that I don’t know how pathetic it is that I do that hahahah. Trust me, I’m aware.

I know I have issues with being a perfectionist: I’m way too hard on myself when I don’t understand things straight away. I definitely need to try and ease up when it comes to my work ethic. But I don’t cry because of my ego, I cry because I want to love my degree and because I try really hard to improve. Plus, it didn’t help that at school we’re absolutely overwhelmed with feedback sheets. Whether it was a bullet point list, or ‘two ticks and a target’ in green pen, we were always given the correct and very specific direction. I hated the whole peer marking thing at the time, and now I’m realising just how much it made the work easier.

I absolutely don’t want to be spoon-fed answers. It just comes as a bit of a nasty shock when all of a sudden I’ve gone from thinking I was pretty decent at languages, to thinking that I’d chosen the wrong degree. I won’t change my degree because I don’t want to, and I did kind of throw myself in at the deep end with Japanese…so it’s sort of on me.

But the level of difficulty in my degree this year has made me feel stupid on many occasions. I don’t mean the ‘omg lol I’m so dumb’ jokey version of stupid, I mean straight-up ‘I’m actually just not clever’. And it might sound like a totally woe is me, first world problems lamentation but feeling that way for the first time is really awful. There have been plenty of things I’ve not been good at in my life but I’ve always liked to think that at least I’m clever. So when I’ve been thrust into situations where I really doubted that, naturally, I get upset about it.

University is meant to be really challenging, because if it weren’t then there would be little point in attending. So I recognise that I’ve got some catching up to do and I just have to keep reminding myself that even though I’m not doing as well as I’d like to, I know I couldn’t be working any harder. I’m not stupid, and eventually I’m going to be good at this language; just not yet.

So I’d like to finish by wishing all of the students reading this: good luck in your online exams!! Also, you’re not stupid if you’ve found this first year really difficult – specific shout-out to my fellow Durham students. And finally, thank you for using my blog as one of your many methods of procrastination. I’m honoured x