First weeks at the south coast

On the bus, I start realizing what I’m about to. I’m making a step forward to something new, but at the same time I’m becoming more distant from my family and all of my friends. I’m feeling how I’m going to miss them all, but I cannot wait at the same time to meet new flat and class mates.

At the passport control in Calais, I’m finding out that there’s a girl on the same bus, which’s heading to study to Southampton as an Erasmus student. Finally, I’m getting to know the first person which’s going to study at the same university as me!

I’m arriving to halls in the evening before the Fresher’s Week. In our block, which is compound of four flats, there are thirteen people – whose origin ranges from USA and Britain, to Nigeria, Iran, Dubai and Hong Kong. There are four people in our flat. The kitchen and bathroom are shared facilities, but each of us has our own room.

One of the greatest events during the Fresher’s Week is called Bunfight. This is where all of the student societies are presenting themselves and trying to persuade visitors that they should join their society. There are over 300 societies, so it’s a really great event. You can find almost everything you can think of, and even such ones you’ve probably never heard about such as the new sport TriVolle. Also, if you don’t find the right society, you can create your own one. The majority of them look like very attractive and so it’s difficult to limit the number of them that I join in order to be able manage school at the same time. After a long time considering, I finally chose to join a swimming club (we have a swimming pool right on the campus where I have the majority of my lectures) and RoboSoc, which is a society where two robots are being built for Eurobot, and one more robot for robot wars. Within this society, there’s also a group which’s building a 3D printer that should be done by December of this year, and it will make building robots for competitions easier and faster.  

Education for the majority of students usually starts the following week, but we’re having an Induction Week. On Monday, we’re having the first, but at the same time, last lecture on Mathematics. It’s lasting for approximately twenty minutes and we’re being told that our Mathematics module is self-paced, which means that we’re supposed to learn everything ourselves and we’re only taking continuous tests at university. Even though I was afraid of this module, it became one of my most favourite modules, this is because I can organise everything on my own. Additionally, if I’m stuck with a mathematical problem, I can visit any of the help sessions, where there’s always someone willing to help me. The key part for other modules are lectures which are accompanied, depending on the module, by tutorials, workshops, labs and by continuous assignments, but that will be discussed in the future.

Back to the Induction Week – the main activity for us during this week was a project. We were placed in small groups and then designed and built, using limited materials, a machine for the transport of an egg to the greatest distance from a launch pad, which was placed on 70-cm-high table. A competition was then organised at the end of the week. It was interesting to see all the various solutions from other groups, where diversity wasn’t really missing – catapults, crossbows, tunnels and even aircrafts.

Another activity during the week was engine rebuilt, when we took apart four stroke combustion engine from lawnmower and assembled it again. We looked closer to certain parts and we were trying to answer questions such as which material and which manufacturing technique were used for the part and why.

It’s now more than a month from the time I arrived. Despite not being easy to begin with, especially my encounter with colloquial English, I really enjoyed my first weeks in Southampton and I can’t wait for the weeks ahead; but at the same time I’m looking forward to the Christmas holidays as I’m seeing my family and mates from the Czech Republic.