Features

Feeling down you’re not one of the new ‘uns?  Wishing you could go back to getting away with missing most of your lectures? Almost missing that permanent hung-over feeling? Never fear, here are eight reasons why second year can sometimes be better!

So the hard works over, you have done you’re A levels, got accepted to uni and apart from the scary waiting for your results the worst bit is over. But if your anything like me you will have a million questions about starting uni. Although that’s understandable as its one of the biggest changes in your life, and for most people one of the best! So here is my guide to preparing for uni!

It goes without saying that there has always been a divide, or, difference of opinion, between popular culture of the masses and alternative culture of the, what some might say, ‘elite’.  In light of this, after hearing Eminem’s, new song, I Love The Way You lie, I began to wonder why there is such an aversion to popular culture, specifically with respect to chart-toppers and Hollywood blockbusters…

The NUS card is a student identity card provided by the National Union of Students.  NUS are there to work with student unions to promote, defend and extend students rights.  It represents 5.2million UK students, of which over 500,000 are in Scotland alone, in further and higher education.  NUS is active in its campaigning and last year alone campaigned on proposing a new funding model for universities, getting student issues at the centre of the general election and liberation campaigns to name a few.

Whether or not it was a good idea to go on a 4-night holiday to Berlin bang in the middle of exams remains to be seen but the verdict from my two flat mates and myself is overwhelmingly positive either way.

Unfortunately our first experience of Berlin was a stressful one, finding our way from the airport to our hostel proved to be quite the challenge. The stress of travelling for 10 hours (and the threatening ash cloud of doom) meant we headed to bed as soon as we got to the hostel; a red brick building named the “Three Little Pigs Hostel”. Yes, it was chosen largely for the name though it is rated highly on security, price and location. Though we weren’t prepared for groups of school kids who like to scream down the corridors at midnight. Also the showers offered little privacy; flimsy shower curtains did not conceal everything effectively, which made our trips to the shower very rapid.

However, we did not choose Berlin for the accommodation; we chose it for the culture and history. Our first taste of it came from Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous sector between the divisions made by the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany. I fulfilled my tourist duty by purchasing a piece of the wall from the nearby museum and we moved on to the Topography of Terrors, a free museum beside a large section of the original wall that still remains. It is quite a haunting area as graffiti scrawled across the wall asks “WHY?” and other sections simply have “MADNESS” sprayed onto it. This was only a small portion of the writing that we could decipher, most of it obviously being in German and having faded away. The museum itself tells of the SS headquarters that existed where we were standing and, of course, gives details of the suffering experienced by many people and displays much of this in photo form to really bring the message home.