All posts by Charles
The Course & Campus
What Does a Student Need?
It’s an age-old question, albeit a young age: What does a student need nowadays? A 52-inch widescreen plasma TV with Sky HD, 12.1 Surround sound, the latest £4,000 laptop and, of course, a pillow. But what else?
The popular choice is cooking equipment, and everyone has their favourites. I’ve gone for a very basic sandwich toaster for two simple reasons:
1) I got one for my birthday, and
2) It doesn’t require a degree in food technology to use! Perfect!
Besides from that I have also got the usual suspects: Cutlery, pots, pans, a whisk (now there’s a story), bottle opener (essential, apparently) and a can opener (otherwise how would I open the beans?)
Onto the bathroom! Shaver (because women love a close shave) and a towel. Seriously, what else do you need?
Finally, the most important room for any student, the bedroom. Technology-wise I am equipped with a desktop, laptop, camcorder and MP3 player. Most people would see this as overkill but because I am studying a relatively technology-rich course I have opted to take both a laptop for lecture notes and on the move, and a desktop for the serious coursework.
An obvious omission from this list is a TV, and this is because my computer can now double-up as a TV, to save space. This is an interesting decision actually. Because of the small nature of a student room it would be ridiculous to have a computer and a TV, so the decision is instead to either get a TV tuner card for your computer or forgo the TV altogether and use BBC iPlayer and the TV in the common room or your friend’s room to watch the occasional programme. The advantage of the latter is cost: you don’t need to pay for a TV licence. For now I am decided on the first option, but I will hold off and see if I get a good enough TV signal in my room before I start to pay the TV licence fee.
Whether I need all of the items above are debateable but I’d guess that you have most, if not all, of the thing listed.
The countdown is down to 4 days, and I still have a lot to do.
Charles
Becky’s Cats – Millie & Daisy
What To Expect
The Story So Far
University is only a week away now, and now is a good time to take stock of where I am and what I’ve got. The last few months have been very peaceful. After finishing Sixth form in July I have indicated my way into the slow lane and comfortably stayed there for the past two months.
In July, I and four friends spent two weeks on the boat having a great time. We went round the canals in Birmingham and stopped off at Drayton Manor on the way. Really, it was the basis of the whole trip as we effectively just went there and back in a big circle).
The remainder of the holiday has largely been spent sleeping (I wish!) with exception of the night before results day. But, never fear the news was good and AAB was the exact result I needed to get into Surrey. And for those who want a detailed breakdown of my results, you’re very unusual.
Two weeks ago I went to Sheffield to visit my sister, Becky, in her new, very cool, house. I really enjoyed it because I got to witness the arrival of two cats (Millie & Daisy) who are so cute (I’ll add a video later), Jordan’s first day at school, Alastair’s first day at nursery, plenty of trips to the swimming pool (three in total) and a grand mish-mash of family for my birthday party on Saturday. The whole time over the last two weeks has been amazing and really fun.
Arriving back to London on Sunday night gave me the opportunity to go to Thorpe Park one last time (well, until October) with some friends before we all go our separate ways and never see each other again.
So now it’s down to business. With a mountain of packing to do and an Everest of paperwork to get around, I certainly won’t be sleeping much for the next few days.
I’ll be keeping you up-to-date with my latest goings-on and giving you more details of the first week of my new life in the coming days. I hope you find this blog as much fun to read as I do writing it.
Charles