Spring-like York

Despite the fact that fresher’s year should serve as a foundation for subsequent years in academic environment, my second year is very different.

Requirements imposed upon students have risen and a policy of active participation during seminars pushes students to read beyond lecture material so that they can cover various aspects of discussed topics. On the other hand, such approach is beneficial as majority of our lectures can recognise us by our name after couple of weeks, as they know that we have voluntarily chosen to specialise in a particular module; therefore, it is highly unlikely that we would not be able to answer any of their questions, which is always highly appreciated by convenors.

Even though the increased workload reflects the importance of our degree, I have managed to spare some time and get involved in university rugby team. To be precise, my career has experienced a rocket launch, when by all of the sudden I appeared on a second team, half way through to the first one, where I train only with highly devoted players who have played rugby since their childhood. Moreover, I can partially understand the frustration of those I have pushed downwards on a team sheet; however, I can honestly pledge that I have not experienced a single occasion of hatred or contempt of someone for their colour of skin, shape of body or country of origin. Although it may sound utopian, I believe, that in this respect is the UK ahead of Czech Republic at least by a decade.

Relatively recently, we have experienced a series of heated debates regarding Maidan of Independence and Crimea, subsequently. According to the saying: “Every cloud has a silver lining”, I have recently met many people with similar interests in International Relations, with who I managed to temporarily step out of our study stereotypes to discuss functionality of the International Community and potential consequences of Ukrainian disintegration.

With the end of this trimester, many students have left the campus so that the typical bustle ceased. Even though my last weeks have been in spite of continuous preparation for Roses Varsity, which is the largest inter-university varsity in Europe, where teams from York and Lancaster fight over a duration of four days to win a trophy, I have managed to attend 5 days long SIA licensed course of Door Supervisor, who oversees the security and wellbeing of all customers during social events held on university campus. After I receive my test results, I will be joining an experienced team of Students’ Union workers, who can definitely enrich me with new experience. However, the time is about to come to focus on our final exams of second year.
 

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