Jamie's road to uni

When we first caught up with Jamie Calver he was waiting on his A Level results that he studied for at West Bridgford School, Nottingham. Now he’s reflecting on Freshers’ week and getting set to hit the books at the University of Southampton where he will be studying Ship Science MEng.

Back in May 2007, Jamie registered for yougo. Using the site meant that he could speak to several people going to join him, or rather hoping to, in Southampton, as well as a number of other people studying elsewhere.

Like the majority of the yougo network, Jamie had a conditional offer that he needed to meet. Quietly confident, but not wanting to tempt fate Jamie thought that he had done enough to achieve the A grade and two B’s, to include Maths, that he needed.

Fortunately he had somewhat of a get out of jail free card “ABB is the asking grade for the MEng Ship Science, if I don’t make it I’ll most likely be accepted onto the BEng and work my butt off for a year to get back on the MEng course”. Clearly though, this was not the desired option.

Despite his cool, calm and collected outlook, as results day loomed nearer, Jamie did find himself feeling surprisingly nervous. “The worst part is the ‘not-knowing’. Once I find out what my results are, I can deal with it, even if they turn out not to be what I was hoping for, but the anticipation and suspense is killing me. 24 hours has never seemed so long to wait”. With a twin sister going through exactly the same experience, things were probably a little tense in the Calver household.

August 16 soon arrived, and like a great number of yougo’s users, Jamie had been up most of the night constantly refreshing UCAS Track. He achieved three A grades. “In a nutshell, I’m over the moon. The realisation that I’m actually going to Uni is starting to slowly sink in now, and I can’t wait”.

“In a nutshell, I’m over the moon. The realisation that I’m actually going to Uni is starting to slowly sink in now, and I can’t wait”.

Mixed feelings about leaving home, soon kicked in. Obviously ecstatic about his achievements, Jamie like many others still found himself feeling normal emotions about missing family and friends, and sadness that school is over with for good.

Different unis start term at different times, the University of Southampton’s academic term doesn’t start until October; some of Jamie’s mates had made their moves to uni while he was still waiting at home. But he’s wasn’t going to be a Billy no mates for much longer.

He’d already bagged an invite to a fellow Sotoners birthday party through yougo and was looking forward to meeting loads of mates through groups and societies. He was slightly anxious about meeting his flat mates “I just hope that the people in my flat are my kind of people!! There would be nothing worse than being stuck with a group of people that I don't get on with”.

Jamie had the right attitude and threw all his energies into Freshers’ fortnight. He bought a pack which included all the events over the week. He didn’t know how many he would actually go to, because you don’t know who you are going to meet along the way and where you’re going to end up, you just have to be prepared to take that chance.

Those efforts paid off big time as “Freshers was, in a word, awesome”. Or at least the parts that he can remember were. There are discussions going on in the forums at the moment which suggest some of you lot were disappointed with your freshers’ experience. Although Jamie had a top time, he thinks that it doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

Jamie’s favourite nights out included Toga night and Rave night. Like so many other youogoers, Jamie found the Freshers Ball a bit of a rip off at £16 a ticket. It would seem that some unions need to think more about your pockets than their own.

Jamie’s now got a few clubs and societies socials coming up, but is more interesting in resting up and detoxing, but like he says “we’ll see how the 'alcohol-free' plan goes when it hits the weekend. yougo thinks… that he’s probably still recovering.

Amy, yougo team