Nicole Anna Čumbová

For a while in December, it looked like I wouldn’t be home anytime soon. Now I have no clue when, if at all, I will be getting back to Scotland this year. That’s not to say I’m not doing well here; I fill my study breaks with walks in the park with friends and when I can, I spend weekends in the snow with my family. The first exam season is over, I’ve handed in this semester’s coursework, but in these precious moments of inner peace, I can’t help but recall the hectic trip home that brought me to them.

It’s pretty much a rule of thumb that no experience ever turns out quite the way you had imagined it would, but to say that my initial experience with university life has been unexpected would be an understatement. It’s not just that it so greatly diverges from the reasonably expected under pre-pandemic conditions, but to me, the surprise has also come from how this university and city have still managed to provide us ‘freshers’ with a warm welcome and wide-ranging opportunities.