Oh. Hello.

Blimey. It's been a while.

I'd like to start by thanking you for reading this. It's really been a while since I last posted, which is a bit rich for a blog that promises to "record my experiences of preparing for university, Fresher's Week, and everything that follows". So thanks for sticking with me and (most likely) following the link on Facebook to read this!

Obviously, my original plan of regularly updating this blog throughout my first term has fallen on its face somewhat, since the term at Cambridge (and indeed at most other universities) has now ended. However, that doesn't mean that I can't still be useful. One of the key aims of this blog for me has been to provide an insight into university life, and I intend to do exactly that, albeit in a somewhat condensed fashion, from now on.

With all that in mind, I've decided to offer an update on my first term in the form of a short list of things that have characterised my first term as a fresher, while mixing in some advice that I would have liked to know before coming up to university.

1. It's busy. Seriously, I could never have anticipated how incredibly full your timetable becomes at university. I'm not just talking about supervised work here - if anything, as an Arts undergraduate my contact time is at the lower end of the scale - but, once you add in independent study, clubs, socialising and other activities, free time really is at a premium.
2. It's worth getting to know the people around you. At Cambridge, it's done on a collegiate system, while at many other universities it's done differently, but the key principle remains the same: the people living nearby are worth getting to know. I've been really, really lucky in that I'm on a staircase with seven lovely people, and since we all do different courses we're almost "united by our differences"! One thing that we do once every fortnight or so is to have a "staircase meal" where we all cook for each other. We take turns in the kitchen, and it's a really pleasant way of getting to know each other better. (That said, I don't think my staircase friends are really looking forward to when it's my turn.)
3. Clubs and societies are amazing! I'm the kind of person who tends to fill his non-working time with society-based fun rather than going out to clubs, but whatever balance you're looking for, there will be a massive range of societies to cater for what you want to do. I'm currently in a jazz band, do quite a few school tours, cox rowers, and design a magazine (more on that later), and I find them really rewarding ways to spend time and meet new people.
4. It's worth finding the local supermarket quickly. While we were all finding our feet I went into town with a few new friends once or twice to get the area into my head. I think it's fair to say that after a term we could all now find Sainsbury's blindfolded! Even if you're essentially catered, you'd be surprised how often you find yourself popping in there.
5. Use the summer beforehand wisely! I didn't waste my summer by any means, but if I could change one thing now it would have been to have read a little more than I had as far as my course books are concerned. Most people are in the same boat as me, it seems, but it would have been good to have consolidated my knowledge of a text a little more before reading 
6. Try new stuff. I've been really surprised at how some of the things I didn't expect to become hugely involved in have become so important. For instance, I went to a "squash" (social gathering) for the Modern Languages Society in the second week, and I'm now quite heavily involved with it! So it's worth trying out things you haven't done before.

And with that, we bid goodbye to my hopefully-helpful alter-ego. I hope that all this advice and information doesn't sound too patronising; as ever, please do feel free to leave comments below. I'd be interested if anyone reading this has anything to add, so please do help me build this into a collaborative resource. (Sorry for sounding like an advert for Wikipedia.)

Thanks!

Hello to New Readers!

If you're reading this after speaking to me this Friday morning, hello! Welcome to my blog. I plan to update it at least once weekly with news from university, and hope you will find it useful.

Please feel free to read the posts below, and speak soon!

Preparations, College Parents and Forms

Preparations for uni and uni life continue apace, punctured by far too much listening to Sky Sailing (a side-project from Adam Young, a.k.a. Owl City). We went to Ikea the other week and bought some of the essentials - after all, who wouldn't enjoy shopping for plates and cutlery?

Most of the actual work that I've been doing so far, though, relates to just two of the papers: for my ab initio Use of Spanish paper I have to complete exercises from nine separate chapters of a grammar book, while for my post A-Level French Literature, Film, Linguistics and Thought paper I've got five books and a film to digest. At the moment I'm about halfway through the grammar exercises; even with a GCSE in Spanish the intensity with which some of the grammar is thrown at you is a little surprising. As far as the French goes, I've seen the film (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1962) and it does provoke some interesting questions. I'm almost done with the first novel, Thérèse Raquin, which I'm finding more of a challenge. Although I studied film at A-Level in the form of François Truffaut, I've got no real experience of French literature, and even though the paper's designed to be introductory, I'll be quite proud of myself, I suspect, when I've finished reading a full-length novel in French!

Apart from the course, one of the reasons I applied to Cambridge was the strength of the collegiate system. This was brought home to me the other day when I received an email from a second-year student at Clare who is to be one of my college "parents" for the year (older students who look out for you; you also have a "sibling" in your year). This really made me feel more relaxed about the "whole university thing", since it's nice to know that there is someone you can talk to and ask questions about any part of the university experience.

That's not to say, though, that Clare College hasn't been in contact. I've had to return an awful lot of forms recently, both to them and to the wider University, covering everything from music arrangements to student health. I also received welcome packs from both Cambridgeshire Police and the UCS (Union of Clare Students), both of which have genuinely been interesting reading. What I haven't heard about yet is accommodation: I understand that I'll find out about my room when I arrive.

So, all things considered, I'm getting there. There are just three weeks to go until I leave, but I'm confident that I'll be ready when it's time to go.

Books, Grant and Cutler, and Choosing Papers

So I'm now in the middle of the "waiting period": before going off to uni, I'm getting ready for things like accommodation, finance, furnishing my room in College,  meeting people on Facebook...

...oh, and reading. Lots of reading.

Now, please don't get me wrong here. I love languages. I love reading. But I'm sure I'm not the only person who's slightly daunted by their reading list. Particularly scary for me is the French literature on the left - as someone who's not studied any literature before I am concerned about my ability to absorb so many complex ideas in a foreign language. I'm confident that I will eventually succeed, but it will take some getting used to.

We'll all, doubtless, suffer from this as we see our reading lists for the first time and come to terms with the differences between school and university. But I can't deny that, in spite of all of this, I am looking forward to the challenge, as I'm sure many of us are.

Most of these books (apart from the Spanish dictionary, which I already owned) were bought either on Amazon or in Grant and Cutler, the massive foreign languages bookshop in London. If you're a fan of languages, I'd recommend checking it out since it has a massive selection in a huge variety of languages. I'm making an effort to keep the receipts, since Clare College operates a really impressive money-back scheme where you can get upwards of 50% of the money you spend on essential book purchases returned to you. The catch is that you need receipts and that there's only a very narrow time window in the second term to apply! While in Grant and Cutler, I was also delighted to be able to meet someone else who was buying the books for French, so we had a lovely chat.

I've also been thinking about my first-year papers. Owing to my options (post A-Level French and ab initio Spanish) I don't actually have to make any choices between papers. For me, that means that in 2011 I'll have exams in: Use of French; Translation and Oral for French; French Literature, Linguistics, Film and Thought; Use of Spanish; Translation and Oral for Spanish; and Introductory Spanish Literature.

It will be a lot of work, and, as with the literature, I'm certainly nervous. That doesn't mean, though, that I'm not eagerly anticipating actually going up to university in October. Because boy, I am.

Starting Out...

Right. Hello.

This isn't the first time I've done a blog. A few years ago, I did one during my time at the World Scout Jamboree, which you can read here, but since then quite a lot has changed for me. Most notably, I'm off to uni!

I've already written this in my "About Me" section, but I'll repeat it here for easy reading. I'm going to Clare College, Cambridge this year to study Modern and Medieval Languages. For me, this means French and Spanish. I was made an offer of one A* and two As, of which the A* had to be in French (I did French, History and English A-Levels). As the more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed, this means that I will be starting Spanish ab initio from October (although I do have GCSE and the knowledge gained from an Open University course).

For me, then, the UCAS process is pretty much over. This means that others are starting to go through the process of visiting universities, writing personal statements, and putting everything that they've done during seventeen years onto one form. I certainly had a lot of questions, and am now finding that people in Year 12 are starting to ask them to me. That's one of the reasons I've created this blog: I aim to be regularly updating it with my experiences. It will obviously be most relevant if you're looking to study languages, but I hope that it will be useful for a variety of people with different aims.

To start off, then, I'd like to know what information I can give to anyone in the position I was in a year ago. Would you like me to blog about personal statements? Interviews? Results day? I'll do everything I can to help before I start giving updates about uni life proper.