Enrollment

I am writing this on a train back to Basingstoke on a noticeably dreary Monday afternoon. I am still finding it hard to get over the fact I have been living in Bournemouth for over a week now, and what surprises me yet further is how I have managed to survive on my own without the supervision of a ‘greater being’. Nothing has struck me particularly challenging yet; the hardest task probably being getting the right bus back to my accommodation and not ending up in the darkest depths of Poole. But after a week I am craving my mum’s cooking, a night in my own bed and the company of my girlfriend. I guess it’s a gift that I only live an hour away from my university. Cleverly planned? Of course not. I would never choose to go to a university nearby just so I could be near loved ones or maintain my social circle, I will always choose the best establishment for what I want to pursue, and it is just lucky that Bournemouth University had the perfect course, facilities and activities for me.

I enrolled on my Music and Audio Technology course this morning to the delight of myself, although I did only find out that I actually started my course today last night, scuppering the plans I had made in my head to spend a good few days in Basingstoke as opposed to the single night I will now be staying. The enrolment was interesting. A dozen or so of us queued up to be greeted with a row of HP computers all fitted with webcams on the top of the PC monitors. We were told to sit down at an available PC and follow the instructions printed out in front of the keyboards. Once I sat down I realised this was to take our very own mug-shot which would be emblazoned onto our student card in a similar fashion to having the word ‘prick’ wrote on your forehead with a Sharpie pen. After one attempt at my picture I was pretty happy with it, after all it’s only a student card and anyone who judges someone on their student card picture is, at the end of the day, an idiot. Once finished, we were ushered into another queue, where once at the front we had to provide photographic evidence of ourselves (?) and proof of our grades from A-level. At this point it felt like a really bad initiation test that a gang would make you take to be granted access. I could just imagine a New York drug-lord coming up to me, “you wanna be part of this?! Show us a picture of ya own face, ya shmuck!”. Once handing the woman my photographic driving license, I got put into a final queue where our student cards were being printed out before our very eyes. Magical. I got handed mine and started to wish I could join the first queue again…

We also got given an induction timetable which is applicable just for this first week. It isn’t majorly busy, I have a jaw-dropping lecture on health and safety tomorrow, but chose to opt out of the campus tour this afternoon as I didn’t believe I could take the sheer enjoyment of it without fainting, collapsing and becoming a complete embarrassment on my first day.* As for my timetable for every week after this one, I am not too sure of that apart from the fact I don’t think I get any days off. This doesn’t really bother me but I’m hoping my days aren’t those rubbish ‘half-days’ where you have a lecture at 9 and then another one at about 4 in the afternoon, meaning a very long sit-down in the university cafe´ reading the student magazine whilst secretly pondering over which hot dish would be best to inflict death upon the dinner-lady. I will forever vouch for the sausage roll.

After a week and a bit I am still enjoying university and think that I will continue to enjoy it for a very long time, perhaps for the whole 4-year duration I am there. But time will tell. It will take something rather major for me to stop enjoying it, such as the canteen ceasing the sale of sausage rolls. Jacket potato?

*I really hope people will pick up on the sarcasm.