{"id":7448,"date":"2022-03-01T13:40:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=7448"},"modified":"2022-03-01T13:40:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:40:17","slug":"the-proper-university-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2022\/03\/01\/the-proper-university-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Proper University experience."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Stage 3 Student, Rio Finch, has studied through a global pandemic -he gives a personal insight into his University Life since joining the University of Kent. <\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s only one place to start this story, and that is from Stage 1.<\/p>\n<p>Like most students, I was nervous about the prospect of coming to University. Moving in day was an emotional rollercoaster, I felt excited about the independence, but still worried about making new friends and living somewhere, where I knew nobody. My advice to everyone on moving in day would be, to leave your door open when you unpack. For me, this tactic worked. It shows you&#8217;re welcoming and you can talk to people that are in your house and get to know them.<\/p>\n<p>I was very lucky with who I got to share with. Because even now in Stage 3, we&#8217;re still sharing a house off-campus.<\/p>\n<p>After becoming comfortable with myself in my surroundings, I jumped in head first. I became Student Representative for my course, started writing for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquiremedia.org\/\">InQuire Media<\/a> (The University of Kent&#8217;s Student Publication) and later became an Ambassador for the School of Anthropology and Conservation -which goes to show, there are so many opportunities here!<\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, before coming to University, I didn&#8217;t have much experience with drinking and clubbing culture, which I was embarrassed to admit. But, I quickly learnt, that this was okay and most people were like me. Fresh out of school and still &#8216;wet behind the ears&#8217;. What really helped me to settle in with my course mates is the free fieldtrip to Brussels after only being at University for about a month. This was really the definition of being thrown in at the deep-end, but, helped so much!<\/p>\n<p>As I conclude on what Stage 1 was like, my advice would be to make sure you sort your living arrangements for Stage 2 before the Christmas break, and really put effort in to the University life and relish in every moment. As now I can&#8217;t believe my journey is nearly over.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-7508 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/files\/2022\/02\/2022-01-25-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"339\" height=\"340\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Stage 2, this was a difficult year.<\/p>\n<p>The transition to full virtual learning, due to the pandemic, really killed my motivation.<\/p>\n<p>But, this overwhelming sense of frustration made me want to get back to the same mentality for my third year as I&#8217;d had in my first.<\/p>\n<p>This is when I had the motivation to start my own society, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/UKC-EcoGeog-Soc-105261124681502\/\">EcoGeog Soc<\/a>, to combine Human Geography and Environmental Social Sciences together.<\/p>\n<p>The society got off to a flying start, as we held Tim Marshall as our first guest lecturer, with over 100 people turning up for this event. The amount of pride and excitement I felt after was so surreal.<\/p>\n<p>After the experience I picked up in my first year, through InQuire Media and working an an Ambassador, I managed to become a Digital Media Assistant for SAC. Which is a new found love, that I thoroughly enjoy.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 3, so far, has been hectic and exciting.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-7506 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/files\/2022\/02\/1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"269\" height=\"358\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We started off the year with mixed-learning (online and in person). Now, we are fully in person again. What a breath of fresh air it has been to be back on campus. The proper University experience.<\/p>\n<p>Although working on the dissertation has been stressful, it has been fun working on your own project and piece of research.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot emphasise enough that what<em> you get out of University is what you put in<\/em>. The experience I have gained so far has allowed me to do private work for <a href=\"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/kiss\/\">KISS and <\/a>re-designing their website, and was also offered an opportunity to go on a paid conference to the University of Surrey in April,\u00a0 to represent the University of Kent.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I can&#8217;t believe my journey is coming to the end, but I would do it all again in a heart beat.<\/p>\n<p>I have made memories which will never fade, and friends which I will never lose.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, being at University is something you will look back on for all of your life. So make sure you grab the nettle with both hands, and jump in head first!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rio Finch is studying for a BSc Hons in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/courses\/undergraduate\/2532\/human-geography\">Human Geography<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stage 3 Student, Rio Finch, has studied through a global pandemic -he gives a personal insight into his University Life since joining the University of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2022\/03\/01\/the-proper-university-experience\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76367,"featured_media":7507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7448"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7515,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448\/revisions\/7515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}