My Portsmouth Uni Journey

It was September 2015 and I was sat in my partners car going towards Portsmouth ready for me to start at the University of Portsmouth in a few weeks, I wanted to go down earlier as it was a new area to me and I wanted to have plenty of time to find my way around before the term started. My first University home was Helena road by the canoe lake in Southsea, Portsmouth. I was literally a five minute walk from the beach. Moving away from home (which for me was Bristol) was daunting because before now I had never lived on my own and had my family within minutes of each other if I needed help but now I was going to have to figure everything out on my own. I suppose in a way I choose a Uni away from home so that I could find myself and be more independent then I was back home, it would be good for me and lets face we all have to grow up and become adults at some point so why not start at university.

One advantage I feel I had in my first year was that I lived with two 2nd year students in my flat at Helena road, they would explain things I didn't understand. When freshers came around I was nervous that I was gunna be encouraged or pushed to drink, I don't drink that much in fact at this time I only liked one drink and even then I didn't have a lot of it. My flatmates told me not to worry it was my choice what I did at freshers. Before I could go to the freshers fair I had to attend a welcome session for my course, I wasn't the only first year trying to find one building in a whole city; there was hundred's of us lost in Portsmouth that day but thankfully Portsmouth Uni had older students on hand to help us get to where we needed to go. My building where the majority of my course would be was ' The White Swan Building'. It was tucked behind one of the many pubs in Portsmouth but the more exciting part is the building was attached to the Theatre Royal Portsmouth and at times we would be allowed to use some of their facilities . I walked into the new modern building, it was new for this year as we auditioned in the old building for performing arts, so one good thing was that we were not the only lost ones as the 2nd and 3rd years were not very sure either where to go. When I walked into the room I was relived a little to see some familiar faces from the auditions, we all moulded together as big group of first years. Some of us were doing the musical theatre course and some of us were doing the Acting course but in first year we would be mostly mixed up for a lot of our lectures.

Then came the week that everyone was looking forward to.... freshers week. I thought this was only for the first years, but it turned out that the university attended. I met some of my new friends at the gates and we all entered together to find what I thought looked like one of the festival we had back home with loads of stalls and areas for dancing and music, the only difference was the stalls were filled with the various university clubs and society's instead of farm fresh products I would of found at home. There was also local businesses giving all sorts of things for free including food and drink away, I had heard to take a big bag with you to the freshers fair and I soon found out why. One advantage was that I didn't have buy much food or drink that day because I was given so much for free, one of my course mates even won a whole large pizza from dominos. It was a lot of fun and I signed up to try and few societies out, the main ones that stuck in my mind was Show choir, cheerleading and the radio station, and the only one a stuck with through the whole three years was the Radio station.

In the first year of university a lot of the lectures were like introductions to what sort of things we can focus on in the second and third year. I remember loads of thing I was taught like how to write academically for my various essays I would have to do ( honestly the hardest one for me, writing academically was not my strong point but I did enough to get a decent grade, plus my dyslexia really did not help.), we also got to explore different types of theatre as well to see what kind of performer, director, writer , producer, stage manger we could be. Another part that stood out to me in my first year was that a group of us got to be in a new and original musical that had never been performed on stage before, so all involved can say that we were in the original cast. If I listed everything I had learned in my first year then you would be reading this for hours. I may even write another story about my experience working on a original musical so keep an eye out for it.

So first year is going really well and I believe I was halfway through the year, I was taking piano lessons to help me read music better and also singing lessons, I was getting decent grades and had a radio show at the university radio station. One day on my way to the centre of Portsmouth to my piano and singing lessons came the first major thing which I would call my family for automatically but couldn't because they were two hours away. It had been raining during the night and I was rushing out the door to catch the bus when as I was going down the path in my front garden I slipped and my music went everywhere and I screamed so loud because I had landed my ankle really funny and it was in agony. What was I going to? I cant call my family, my flatmates had already left for lectures earlier in the morning. Thankfully two neighbours had heard me scream and came outside, one neighbour was in the same building as me so rang the landlady we all shared, when she got told that I had an accident in the front garden she rushed over to help as she knew i was away from home. My landlady took me to the hospital and made sure I was okay to get home, she also called my flatmates to tell them I was at hospital. I turned out that I had severely sprained my ankle but had recovered within a week maybe a few days after. That was the first of two medical emergencies I had in my whole time at university.

My living arrangements had changed when I got to my second year, this year I was employed by the university to be an R.A ( Residential Assistant) where I lived in the university's Halls of residence. I was point of contact for the first year students to the Hall support staff, usually they would pick students that had already lived in halls so to day I have no idea why I picked to be an R.A but I didn't argue, I was going to be living somewhere and getting paid for it. Of course the hall I was a R.A in contained a particular student I had promised to keep an eye on... sister in law. My partner's little sister started at Portsmouth University the year after I did and had also moved into the same hall as me. It was fun being a like big sister to someone, before she met her partner I was the person that was called when she needed someone no matter what time of the night or day it was. I won't go into details but University life got more interesting when sister in law rocked up, but there was comfort for both of us that there was someone around from home.

My lectures in second year depended on what I had chosen at the end of my first year, it was like choosing my GCSE's all over again. One very different thing I had chosen from the rest of my course was Student enterprise I was the only one in musical theatre that chosen to do it. I knew I wanted to work for myself eventually so figured it was a sensible option for me to learn about business as well. I had met and made some new friends in student enterprise who I ended up with a lot on projects and in that subject is where I got my first 1st on a assignment or project so I knew that had made the right choice. That one thing in university, you don't if the choice you made was right until you do it which is why my advice to younger students was to always take opportunities that come your way. To this day I stick to that bit of advice, not just for University but for life itself.

Another major aspect of my second year was doing DMS (Drama and music society) even though it was a society some of us were required to take part as part of one of our subjects. I am making sound like it didn't enjoy it but I did really enjoy it. We did ' The Pirates of Penzance' a classic gilbert and Sullivan musical. It was performed at the Theatre Royal Portsmouth, and I was a blast to be on stage in full production like I used to do at college, and one advantage was I only had to cross one road to be home as I lived in Hall as part of my job. There was something embarrassing about it and that was that I met my future brother in law whilst dressed as little bo peep as he says, my sister in law had to drop something to me at the stage door and I was in costume, It was a beautiful costume but all I needed was a crook and some sheep to complete the look. To this day my brother in law does not let me forget about it.

So second year was successful and the end of the year we had given in our dissertation proposals and I had secured my place on the R.A team for my final year, they were able to swing me having a studio for my final considering how important the final year was. I had been voted onto the University radio station's committee as the new head of Marketing. I had a lot to look forward to when I went back in September. However my final and most important year had hardly begun before I was stuck by my second medical emergency. I was working i my room when I had a bit of pain in my mouth, I took some painkillers and didn't think much of it as I wasn't registered at a dentist so I would have to wait till I could go home and get seen. However the next day my mouth had different ideas and while walking down commercial road I started to get immense pain in my mouth and it honestly felt like I had been electrocuted from inside, I called 111 and explained that I didn't a dentist in Portsmouth as I was Uni student who went home regular anyway. But the pain was to much they told me to an dentist on a emergency situation, I didn't want to go on my own so my boss from the Halls of residence set up for me and and R.A to go there in a taxi and then told us to call her or the reception when we were ready to come back. It turned out that I had a major infection in my gums and was due to my wisdom teeth, it was decided that I needed to go home and have all my wisdom teeth out in order to prevent any future infection. I went home and had the surgery done at a local hospital was I was put to sleep due it being such a long a complicated procedure. I stayed home for a month doing all my work remotely for university including my work for the dreaded dissertation.

When I went back to University I was still on softish food due to my recent dental work. Just before I came home I received a message saying that I was a producer in one of courses theatre groups and we would meet so that the director and leader of the group could catch me up when I returned, we met up and I found out I was a producer for a LGBTQ+ support theatre group called Pridentity which I had no problem with, I had plenty of friends and family in this particular community, as producer it was my job to assist the director and also harness every source we could get our hands on to achieve what we had in mind, I also had to do a lot of research and calls, and it was fun we even manged to raise money for charity as well as support and awareness on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community, we even used my radio show I did to tell the whole campus about our vision. I was also caught up on the the Studio project we all had to do, I was hoping to try and get one of my original scripts used but as everyone was already in groups and had solid ideas by the time I got back I decide not to tread on anyone's toes and did a studio project on my own, I got a second year student to be in the project with me and on the show day one my friends helped out with the tech side. But I had written, starred, directed, produced and built the set for the performance and I believe I came out with respectable 2:1. The good grades kept coming back and it was soon confirmed that I would be graduating with a 2:1 Hons in Musical Theatre.

All in all University is a roller-coaster of tears or joy, sadness, anger. You experience so much at university but even at the lowest moments you still will not want to leave, there was always something I me that told me to keep going, and I am glad that I did. I re found my love for writing and realised as much as I like performing stories and shows I had more joy creating them. When you go to University It will be some of the best years of you life, even if it sometimes doesn't feel like it I promise you that you will have a massive feeling of accomplishment when you get the degree. I thought I would put my story out there so future Uni students can see that everyone's story and journey will be different. It was the on roller-coaster ride I enjoyed and would do all over again.