Becoming a Bloody Student...

[Recurring Villain]

Sov - Maybe it'll be different in Lancaster! Where are you studying?

[Sovereign]

Sov - Maybe it'll be different in Lancaster! Where are you studying?

haha nah they're not that bad, there's always careerists and sociopaths in politics, but there's some of the finest people you could ever hope to meet too.

I was studying at Salford, but I graduated this year with a mighty 2:2 in politics. This has prepared me for a lifetime of shelfstacking and potwashing quite well.

PS I know people at Lancaster, it's a good uni and politcally there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. Best of luck!

[hpmons]

The Writer's Guild

I went to the creative writing soc and it was really formal, so I stayed for two minutes then ran away (I wasn't the only one).

[actwithoutwords]

Sovereign's posts here remind me very much of this:
'Mr. Loophole' on the Best Show

[The Boston Crab]

I've simply got to listen to more Best Show. That's just wonderful. The line about

Spoiler alert

forcing the state you live in to send a busload of prisoners to clean your yard

[close]

really did it for me.

The only other Best Show bit I've heard, 'HutPod', kills me every time.

[Emma Raducanu]

RV, If you're in Lancaster, get down to Element for 94p Fridays. It's not as classy as it sounds, but what the fuck eh? You might even get laid.

Do not tip the Freshner Up guy in Toast. If he know's you're the type to tip, he might spray you while you've got your balls out on future occasions.

The Sugarhouse is terrible but you'll spend half your time there. Take a book or something.

Morecambe is a nice place for midday/afternoon drinking as there's lots of interesting karaoke clubs and scary dirty looking people.

Dukes theatre is your best chance of seeing poorly distributed films.

Try Miyabi for a great eating experience - everywhere else is pretty shit. It is an especially great place to take a young girl on a first date. The music is soft and soothing and helps you concentrate on the food flavours and the food is cooked in front of you exhibitionally.

Lancaster has a lovely canal system; it can be an especially joyous place for a picnic, stroll or jog. It can also be used to dispose of bodies.

Lancaster train services are well connected so you can probably pop off to Preston (20mins) for a couple of decent football matches or Blackpool (40mins) for even better football matches plus some rollercoaster rides.

Local celebrity includes Jim Bowen

[Little Hoover]

Is there supposed to be a hidden message in that post?

[Emma Raducanu]

Erm not really. Just that life in the north is unglamorous but it can still be fun. You don't like clubs though do you. I could maybe offer guidance on small, slightly out-of-town pubs that specialise in Irish poetry recital and old men playing the accordian. I could say that Lancaster University Library is a wonderful place, especially on rainy evenings when it's quiet and the endless corridors of books are punctuated by a lovely tapping of rain droplets on the roof like the backing to a Max Richter song. There's a butterfly house if you're interested in butterflies. I could warn that while joining a film society because you're interested in film may seem a good idea; it will in reality involove spending too much time watching stuff you don't want to see with a bunch of annoying bellends and that you're better off just watching films by yourself. I might mention that while Lancaster has more than it's fair share of charity shops, they are some of the best I have visited and are worth an irregular visit. Lancaster also has many remnants of it's historical past but don't look for it in the residential areas: the architecture is a fucking catastrophe. I don't know but it's just the first few weeks of uni tend to involve a lot of going out and it's worth knowing where a man can get a drink for 94p.

[Little Hoover]

I just asked about the hidden message because of all the bolded words, it looked as if there was supposed to be a sentence that could be unscramabled.

[Recurring Villain]

I took 'Canal System' and 'Jim Bowen' as something very subliminal.

[sirhenry]

My best move was joining the Anarchist Society on day one. Provided me with a trustworthy dealer for the three years and in the second year we got hundreds of members by offering free biscuits to the freshers, so got hundreds of quid to spend on massive surreal parties. That and providing regular interesting and intelligent political discussion which you definitely won't get by joining any of the political party groups.

The other thing that worked was pretending to be happy and outgoing in my first term, saying "Hello" and smiling at everyone. This means everyone smiles back and will make small talk, so you can pick out the more interesting ones to develop relationships with. The only down side is that people walking with you get really pissed off that you seem to know everyone. It was the total antithesis of how I've been before or since, but I thought 'Fuck it, why not?' and it made me several life-long friends.

[Retinend]

You're like my opposite! Debate societies should be nuked, with all eager participants locked inside them. Honestly, the notion that a year one textbook in any given subject provides any young adult with the knowledge they need to be able to 'debate' anything is pitiful. Avoid debate classes and all who attend them like the plague. They are the enemy. These are the people who argue for the sake of it because they think, in their youthful ignorance, that they know something. All their life experience is ahead of them, yet here they are debating things. They don't know fuck about shit. That's the kind of thing the healthier ones soon learn when they leave university.

Wow. I thought university was for people who find happiness in questioning, probing; proposing new ideas and exchanging them with others. I thought that was where the excitement in academia lies. All my closest friends are those who I never agree with - or if we do agree we deliberately adopt slightly different stances on the same principal just so we can continue the exchange. Fear of debate and intellectual confrontation is a perverse and all too common mindset. An argument over ideas is the opposite of an argument over household chores - it's exciting and edifying. What's the alternative; a friendship without disagreement and debate? I hardly get to know anyone when I'm drunk and dancing with them, or playing drinking games with them.

I don't see when 'Youthful ignorance' expires. The idea that you can't state a reasoned opinion without a lifetime of work in one arena is an appalling technocratic standard. People should be encouraged to know the world they live in with a well-rounded clarity, rather than being made to feel that their course defines the boundaries of their valid opinions. You have a lifetime to be pigeonholed to your career. You should use the once-only opportunity to cram as much knowledge and understanding into your head as possible. And you should do it because it's what you get the most out of life.

[Danger Man]

Wow. I thought university was for people who find happiness in questioning, probing....

I certainly went to university to do some probing (sniggers behind hands for several minutes)

Apart from that I'd just like to add that I agree 100% with Sovereign. University is all about being passionate about politics (only left-wing politics, obviously) whilst stealing as many laptops and chairs as you can.

Not really. But I realise that I was equally as much of a jumped-up cunt who thought he knew it all when really he knew nothing to make fun of other people's posts.

[Barberism]

Pretending to be dyslexic to get a free laptop is extremely cuntish.
If you can't afford a laptop don't get one. It's not essential. It's a good life lesson. Can't afford something - go without.

Heck, short for cash? Pretend you are collecting money for charity and just pocket it yourself. Tell girls your little brother has down's syndrome to get sympathy fucks.

[Zero Gravitas]

Pretending to be dyslexic to get a free laptop is extremely cuntish.
If you can't afford a laptop don't get one. It's not essential. It's a good life lesson. Can't afford something - go without.

Heck, short for cash? Pretend you are collecting money for charity and just pocket it yourself. Tell girls your little brother has down's syndrome to get sympathy fucks.

This one doesn't work.

[Lfbarfe]

Lancaster has a lovely canal system; it can be an especially joyous place for a picnic, stroll or jog. It can also be used to dispose of bodies.

Combine canal appreciation with drinking, at the Water Witch. The White Cross had its attractions too, back in the day, in the form of very nicely-kept Bass.

[hpmons]

My best move was joining the Anarchist Society on day one. Provided me with a trustworthy dealer for the three years and in the second year we got hundreds of members by offering free biscuits to the freshers, so got hundreds of quid to spend on massive surreal parties. That and providing regular interesting and intelligent political discussion which you definitely won't get by joining any of the political party groups.

The only down side is that the MI5 will have a file on you.

[Artemis]

Encouraging someone to be ignorant of politics is pretty low

That's not what I'm doing, though. I'm not suggesting anyone be ignorant of it, just not become involved in it – at a student level anyway – because I don't think that it provides anything of value.

Politics is incredibly important, absolutely vital, and just because it hurt your pretty little head to think about things like this doesn't make them meaningless and doesn't mean that other people won't enjoy them.

True, but my (very) pretty little head isn't hurt by thinking about things like this, just disinterested and critical of the alleged virtue there is in political cheerleading. Of course it's up to other people what they think has meaning and what they enjoy – that goes without saying. The thread was initially to give any student-related advise to whateverhisnameisnow, and my advice is to avoid getting caught up in student politics.

Student Union politics is ultimately a bit of a waste time

Err.....

You should live it up at uni, take a taste of everything, INCLUDING politics.

But.... it's a "bit of a waste of time", isn't it?

Trying to exclude it, just because you're by your own admission to emotionally fragile to do well at it is just utterly pathetic.

Haha, you love trying to define the other side's arguments, don't you. You'd make a good politician, that's for sure. Your feelings about what you think I've said are irrelevant because I didn't say what you've misunderstood me saying.

Trust me, being ignorant is the worst option. They say ignorance is bliss, bullshit. Some people thrive of the "stress" of giving a shit about the world. It's often called excitement. Socially, I'd much rather make friends with people who have opinions than vapid morons. But that's just one of those differences between me and you isn't it.

Apparently so. I try to avoid people who run around putting the world to rights with their back-of-a-matchbox opinion neatly given to them by that day's editorial in the Guardian. Very few of the mouthiest little upstarts in politics, especially at a student level, have the faintest clue what they're talking about but are so impressed with their opinions they're as difficult to engage as any of the fundamentalist religious types I've known. Giving a shit about the world is usually very different from being involved in politics – definitely at a student level. If you really gave a shit, you'd be involved in charity work and doing something of real value, not pushing leaflets for the greens through people's letterboxes. I'm not saying politics can't achieve anything, but it's immensely bureaucratic and slow at doing it – the best and most direct way of helping anyone is not to be found in politics.

Who the hell wants to be like that? Deliberately closing your mind off to something as vital as politics is a mark of someone with absolutely no character, sonny. you call it a skill to be ignorant? There's no skill in being a fool. if you close your mind off for the sake of a quiet life of consumerist hedonism you will more than likely do nothing of any value or importance in your life.

To my mind, becoming moderately involved in politics in the sense that you're cheering on a party from the sidelines and are able to give a carefully prepared list of why you're on the left/right/whatever is a bit of a waste of time. Becoming intimately involved in politics can be fruitful because sadly our flawed system is the only infrastructure we have right now to change things on a legislative level. But don't yack on about it like it's the highest and most noble thing to be involved in, because it's simply not. Any person owes it to themselves to consider their interests and weigh them up against whether it's helping them find who they are and grow in themselves. That might sound wishy-washy to you, I don't care at all.

Wow. I thought university was for people who find happiness in questioning, probing; proposing new ideas and exchanging them with others. I thought that was where the excitement in academia lies.

For me, the excitement was to develop those skills within me, yes, but any environment given to exchange ideas or debate with others just depressed me, because the more you know, the more you realise how little you know. University, contrary to all my expectations, contained some of the mose closed minded, cock-sure, arrogant little shits I've yet encountered in life. These are the same people who know the least; who have the most to learn. Yet they cotton on to something perhaps they realise your average joe might not know, and feel justified in giving themselves a platform. Is it worth engaging with them to make such points? No, because it falls on deaf ears and is a frustrating and futile waste of time.

I hardly get to know anyone when I'm drunk and dancing with them, or playing drinking games with them.

Not if that's all you're doing, of course not. But such an environment provides far greater scope for really getting to know somebody than sitting on a platform in a chair opposite their chair giving a rebuttal to their second argument, or some such self-indulgent formality. You're not truly getting to know a person if all you're doing is hearing their opinion on current affairs.

The idea that you can't state a reasoned opinion without a lifetime of work in one arena is an appalling technocratic standard.

One of the characteristics I loathe about people I've known involved in politics is this duty I sense they have to Have An Opinion. I rarely hear an opinion from somebody not intimately involved in the subject to which I personally think they're properly entitled. People indulging themselves in politics, especially students, are awash with Opinions, as if they feel they must have a view on everything. It's depressing beyond belief. I'm suggesting: don't worry about nailing your colours to a mast until you've properly researched it and thought it through at the very least. To do that requires more than being able to regurgitate a manifesto.

People should be encouraged to know the world they live in with a well-rounded clarity, rather than being made to feel that their course defines the boundaries of their valid opinions. You have a lifetime to be pigeonholed to your career. You should use the once-only opportunity to cram as much knowledge and understanding into your head as possible. And you should do it because it's what you get the most out of life.

Well, according to you. Knowledge is over-rated. I refer you to Krishnamurti. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but knowing things for the sake of knowing things is futile and certainly nowhere near what I'd describe as 'getting the most out of life'. The alternative is not, as Sovereign would have us believe, 'switching off' and becoming involved in hedonism or consumerism, but can also be a conscious, pro-active and healthy detachment from the relentless need to know, and opinions of people who think they do. To switch off from that, concentrate on your family, on what the ocean seems to be saying to you, on how your mind feels when it's left to itself away from all this stuff, and tending to that vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden, are higher pursuits. That's a philosophical stance which no doubt will be ridiculed by students who prefer to disrupt the peace with their megaphones and banners, but it's a perfectly valid one.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Id say that's a pretty close approxmiation of where im at too Artemis. Im definitely alot more skeptical of the part of me that wants to change things/finds problems everywhere these days, since it usually turns out that it was the 'problem-finding mind' creating all the problems in the first place. I think history tends to reveal a similar story. Most of the world's artrocities werent commited by people who selfishly sought out power and wealth at any cost, they were commited by people who genuinely thought they were manifesting utopia for the good of humanity. They may be cliches but theyre all true: "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" "be careful what you wish for". Which is not to say that positive change is impossible, but that effective change usually occurs organically rather than institutionally; it grows out of its own principles rather than from a set of enforceable mandates. Or as Ghandi made the point: "be the change you want to see".

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

Politics is a lot bigger than political parties, voting etc and it's rather reductive to castigate those who don't participate in such things as apathetic. As Artemis says, the person that helps out at a day centre or does their elderly neighbour's shopping is far more politically involved and has much more impact on society and people's lives than someone who votes in every election and spouts rhetoric in the pub or on the internet, but who wouldn't lift a finger to help someone in real life. It doesn't boost your ego as much, though.

Politics with a capital P is just an abstraction of real politics, it's becoming increasingly irrelevant to the everyday lives of normal people, and perhaps gets in the way of real political and social change. If you want radical change, you have to have a radical commitment to it in your everyday life, participating in the divorced spectacle of Politics is probably one of the most conformist and least revolutionary things you could ever do.[nb]That said, I'm still hoping there's room on the coach for me to go to the protest outside the Tory conference this weekend. But that's cause I like shouting RRRAHHH RAAGGHR RARRGH, not because I think it'll make a pig's arse worth of difference[/nb]

as Ghandi made the point: "be the change you want to see".

This.

[webbtje]

Don't ever use the word 'lash' or any derivation thereof to refer to drinking. I cannot stress this enough.

[hpmons]

Yes, people might mishear that you went "out on the leash" and assume you are into BDSM.

[webbtje]

No, people will just assume you're a cunt.

[purlieu]

I don't think I know anybody who was a member of a society or paid attention to student union politics.

[The Boston Crab]

And I bet you nuzzled more cooch than any other human being during the equivalent period.

There's a lesson to be learned here, young fellas.

[Blue Jam]

Ah yes, it's Bloody Student time of the year again... just finished my MSc here and volunteered to help out at the Welcome Day for the new MSc students, was a bit emotional as that's what told me and the rest of the 2009 intake "this is finally over".

To follow on from a few things already mentioned in this thread: I'd second the recommendation to avoid paid work if you can afford to, and the first year is definitely the best year to do it during a BSc. I had no choice on my first degree and nearly failed my second year after taking on too much paid work- the second year was definitely the hardest for me in terms of uni work and lots of people on my course felt the same way. The first year doesn't count for too much, the third year will usually be taken up by more project work which you can do in your own time (if you're doing a BA or don't have a lab-based project), so concentrate on making it to lectures and working hard in the second year. I figured I'd get more out of my MSc by treating it like a full-time job and not having to work this time round made a huge difference.

Student politics: I wouldn't bother, personally. During my BSc I ran in one of the elections and while it was useful training in public speaking, dealing with arseholes, etc, it also showed me how dirty even smalltime politics can get. I didn't have too many problems but my friend who ran for president had it much worse with some unbelievably dirty tricks from her rival, and over what? I went for it simply because a first graduate job paying £16K tax free and with only three candidates going for it seemed like a pretty good thing to go for, but the way some of the candidates were behaving you'd think we were going for a £100K job as Lord Sugar's Apprentice. At the start of my MSc I attended a couple of meetings of the Debating Society because I thought it'd be a laugh and a chance to learn a bit more about rhetoric, could have been fun but I soon discovered most of the people involved were twats, people who could argue very well but probably had difficulty making friends. It was very interesting to learn that such societies were originally set up by law schools to help law students learn to defend rapists and murderers, should they need to one day.

On the BSc I joined a couple of clubs, on the MSc I ended up joining none. Being a scientist I found more stuff to do being run by my own department. I was determined to make the most of my studies the second time round and attended loads of seminars and journal clubs- the latter came in very handy for when I started my lab project and had to critically appraise papers, especially as I eventually chose a supervisor who is involved in peer review and is a very harsh critic. Also go to loads of seminars, you'll see (and perhaps even meet) some great speakers you wouldn't get a chance to see otherwise. And get plenty of free wine.

Anyone doing a lab-based project? Competition for projects and supervisors at my uni was intense and it got very dog-eat-dog, it just reminded me of student politics again so I decided to take a step back and not discuss my project applications with anyone- I'd recommend doing that to stay sane. We were also repeatedly told that the one thing supervisors look for is enthusiasm, so I was exasperated to hear students bragging about how they were planning to network, kiss arse, send CVs in to big up their experience, etc. Choose a subject area you're passionate about and go for it- "do something you love" is good advice for life in general so it's a good way to go at the beginning of your career. Also when you meet a potential supervisor ask yourself "could I work with this person?" On a lab project you could be working with them 9-5 every weekday for six months so it's important. For a non-lab project you'll need to see eye-to-eye with the person marking your work and giving you feedback. Meet loads of supervisors too, I did that and it was a real eye-opener to learn how different they all are and who I could and couldn't have worked with. I discovered that senior lecturers and professors can make for crap supervisors as a lot of them are never there for their students, while young lecturers are often (but not always) more determined to prove themselves with more of an "I won't allow my students to fail" attitude.

If anyone has any MSc or science queries then fire away... back here I'm adjusting to civvy street, applying for lab jobs but not getting very far and I suspect everyone on the course is going for the same jobs. I've also just started my first PhD application- anyone got any tips? I know exactly what I want to do research on but it's nerve-wracking as it's a whole new system I don't understand.

[greencalx]

1. Please don't abuse "special circumstances" systems. They're the reason why our board of examiners meetings last five hours, which doesn't do anyone any favours, least of all the people whose degrees are being classified.

2. You don't need a laptop - universities supply perfectly adequate computing labs.

3. PhDs? Very variable application system depending on subject and place - PM me if you want excessive tedious detail.

[Blue Jam]

http://www.microwarehouse.co.uk/ are good for cheap laptops, though greencalx is right. You don't need one, but they can be a huge help, especially around dissertation time when you might find it hard to find a free workstation anywhere.

greencalx, I have a feeling we've had this conversation before, but I forgot all about it during Dissertation Hell last month. Could do with some help with personal statements actually, cheers.

[Lfbarfe]

As a former students' union sabbatical officer, I can honestly say that it was the best year of the 4 I spent in Lancaster. Get involved, don't get involved, do what works for you.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Just out of interest, what's the reasoning for dyslexic people getting free laptops?