Studenthood Archives - Page 4 of 8

My loan came in this morning. After all the fuss, stolen eggs and tears, it’s finally in. My fight with Student Finance England is over. I’ll stop whinging now.

This means one thing, and one thing only. I’m going shopping.

Obviously, being a sensible and conscientious student, I’ll contain myself and not blow the bank immediately. Having lived off ALDI’s 69p veg for the past two weeks, I never want to find myself in a situation where the only way I can afford a cup of coffee is if I beg in the street for a bit.

So what will I buy first?

The plan.

Obviously, I’m going to get drunk first.Anyone who wants to see me celebrating the fact that I have real life expendable income, that isn’t being instantly swallowed up by my overdraft, then I’ll be the one at the bar ordering two for one cocktails at Dusk on Thursday. The Milky Bar Kids are on me.

Then, being a sensible third year, I’ll recover from my hangover by doing a food shop. The first thing on my list is a crap load of coffee, because I ran out and I can’t keep depending on Emma Bennett to supply me with it (#bestfriendever). I’ll get some stationary to do some degree work with. And I’ll buy some vegetables, some pasta, enough biscuits to see me through the dark days of essay-composing, and a huge bulk-order of flapjack ingredients.

Then, as it’s cold, I’m going shopping shopping. For clothes. Like I’m LLYMLRS or something.

Winterwarm by farrah-kelly featuring bright blue skinny jeans

Look! I’m a fashion blogger now! Does this count? Strictly speaking, I can’t actually afford all of those things. Even with the loan in. But, what is wonderful, is I can afford to get at least some of it. I need a new pair of jeans since I tore my faithful skinnys whilst giving the shower a good scrub, so that’s pretty high on the list of priorities. The rest is slightly ambitious, but a girl can dream.

After I’ve finished recovering from my mega hangover, packed away all of my new groceries, and slid into my new pair of jeans, I’m going to book a trip. There’s definitely a visit home on the cards, but I’m branching out past Huddersfield.

I want to review somewhere new. I’ve not had the time or money to go somewhere and explore lately, but I’ve been getting itchy feet. I’m thinking the Lake District, because it’s as close as I’ll get to the New Zealand landscape I’ve become obsessed with following my mega-LOTR-athon. Any suggestions to a cheap and lolz-ridden trip away, maybe for a weekend, would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, while I order food and splash out on an electric blanket, I’m going to be constantly humming a mix between Etta James’ At Last and Nappy Roots’ Good Day.

I’ve checked my bank account daily since the start of term. Each time, when I see the only change is that it’s steadily decreasing under the weight of bills, food and rent, I get a lump in my throat and sheepishly ask Emma if I can use her shampoo and conditioner again this week.

I’ve been at university for a month, yet my student loan has yet to make an appearance. There were problems with my application this year, and Student Finance England are taking their sweet time in rectifying it. The thing is, I’m pretty much at breaking point.

I realised my loan application had been cancelled when the university granted me a Leave of Absence. They did this because they were under the impression that I wanted to take a sabbatical- despite me telling them otherwise six months- SIX MONTHS- earlier. That’s a whole other story, which I won’t bother with here, because I’ll probably self-combust.

I reapplied for the loan. I’d never had any problems with Student Finance England, and had really been quite smug about it. While all my friends were stressing about being on hold for hours, about waiting weeks for their money to breeze in- I knowingly shook my head. What idiots, how can you manage to get such a straightforward system wrong? Turns out, this smugness was misplaced. Sorry judged friends, you’re not all idiots. I take it all back, I’m one of you now.

First, there were admin problems on my part. Making a habit of moving house causes a lot of problems when it comes to locating important scraps of paper. Everything is in boxes, upside down, or three houses behind. When P40s and wage slips are asked after, it’s usually taken as a rhetorical question. So a week later, having harassed my parents’ bosses into providing them with relevant paperwork, we were off. A collective sigh of relief was exhaled; from me, my parents, from all the people I’d been whinging to. It was all over.

Eventually, a letter dawdled through the post. You’re eligible! We’re going to give you a loan! Hurray! All you have to do is sign a letter -easy- pop it in the post -consider it done- and wait for your tuition fees and maintenance grant to dazzle you -thank all that is sacred.

I don’t know which alternate realm Student Finance England occupies, but it’s one where a first class letter takes more than nine days and counting to arrive. Disheartened by the ninth day of stealing eggs from my best friend and sending apologetic texts to my rent-less landlord, I decided I’d phone them up.

Twenty minutes later, having pressed one (to prove I was a student), three (to prove I wanted to talk about a loan), two (to prove I wasn’t joking), one again (to say I wanted to speak to a person, not a chihuahua), nine (to sacrifice a lamb) and two again (to make sure I didn’t actually require Childline), I got through to the lovely Irish Dan.

Dan agreed my loan hadn’t gone in. He told me it takes five days to scan my letter (FIVE DAYS!) . He asked what form of post I used to send my letter (fucking owls, obviously) and then mentioned in passing that the problem may very well be that the university hasn’t confirmed my attendance, which can take up to seven days. In Student Finance Speak, that translates as three months.

Me in ALDI every week.

I tried holding it in, but this was the straw to break the camel’s back. The shock of being told it was going to take a week for the university to check the bloody register, ten days plus for them to receive in Student Finance World, then another five days for it to be scanned felt like a slap. I had a quick skrike on the phone to Irish Dan, who was probably not expecting having to deal with a crying girl today. I mumbled my thanks and hung up.

Immediately, Emma rang. She’s on her way home, and there are criss-cross chips in the oven. I think I need a lie down. And some garlic mushrooms. And a bottle of wine wouldn’t hurt.

My supervisor used the C word the other day. Sat politely in his office, having a chat about how our respective summers had been, he brazenly cracked out possibly the most offensive word he could have summoned.

No, not that one. God, what’s wrong with you? This is respectable company we’re talking about- he’s an academic. You disgust me. I meant Career.

He wanted to know what I planned on doing after university. And it’s a fair question- I wouldn’t mind knowing myself. But that’s exactly the problem; I haven’t the foggiest. While everyone else has drawn up meticulous life plans- I’m still floundering around in a corner of the internet quietly wondering whether I can justify a new leather jacket to the Natwest overdraft people, and stacking my ever increasing pile of charity shop books onto my to-read list.

I have friends making the deadline for grad-scheme applications, friends comfortably setting up businesses and idly considering how much they’re going to pay themselves, and friends lining up contacts for post-university networking. I don’t know when you all started deciding what you wanted to do with your lives, but it would have been polite for one of you to give me a nudge, or to have at least told me to get out of bed. I mean really.

Me not knowing what to do with myself is hardly ground-breaking, but it’s starting to get kinda important. I can pretty much rule out engineering, Japanese translating and piloting. I would suck at those jobs. So that narrows it down a bit, which is a nice start. Further than this though, I’m falling short of ideas. Suggestions welcome (seriously).

What I think I’ll do, unless I unearth some unmissable opportunity, is take myself off one one of those gap-yahs I’ve been pining after for the last three years. Is that cheating? I don’t care. If I structure it properly, I can build myself up a little stock of life experiences- and I might even be a little closer to knowing what I’d love to be doing at the end of it all. Filling a year with travel, lots of work experience, internships and more writing seems my best bet. I don’t have to be tied to a place, I can satiate my itchy feet and (more importantly) I can buy myself some time before the real world hits.

As part of this startling independence you suddenly face upon arrival at university (“you mean I have to do my OWN laundry?”), a pitiful student loan and whatever spends you can convince your parents to donate won’t ever seem quite enough to fund your debauchery or even your pesky food habit. And the realistic way of dealing with this is a part-time job. While Hannah Allies thinks it’s a bit of a waste of time, I’m here to make the case for working students.

Don’t kid yourself that the time you’re earning real life minimum wage would be otherwise spent hard at work in the library. Especially in first year, all spare time suddenly becomes nap time, or time spent pointlessly Facebook stalking people you’ve only the loosest connection to. It’s certainly not spent rereading your lecture notes. You may as well put it to good use.

Working a part time job really will help your future prospects. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s true. While you’re probably not planning on becoming a professional shelf-stacker or barman after University, it’s important to know how work environments work first hand. This means knowing how time-keeping works (if they say you start at one, turn up at five to), how to deal with idiot customers (“no sir, I can’t give you a fifty per cent discount…”) and how to handle a crisis (Table Twelve don’t have their desserts yet and the kitchen’s just set on fire).Transferable skills, right there.

No matter how fabulous your essays in first year were, nor how your were an avid member of Fish and Chip Soc, no employer is going to care about your CV unless you can prove you’re willing and able to graft. Graft hard. Cleaning tables or changing beer barrels might not be the most fun things in the world, but it shows you know the real meaning of elbow grease. Employers lap that stuff up.

While work may eat into your social calender at some times- don’t let this put you off. Weekends are pretty uneventful in York, so putting in a few hours at a shop or cafe in town will keep you busy without dragging you away from too many college matches or student nights. Plus, you’ve got a Christmas work-do to look forward to now.

Equally, it provides a handy excuse for those invites you’d rather not accept. Oh, you’re all dressing up in bin bags for a night out? I’d love to, obviously, but I have work the next morning, and if I went in smelling like Mansion I’d probably get fired. Works a charm.

The main, and most obvious benefit of working is the wage. God knows you’ll be needing some form of income; those library fines aren’t going to pay themselves.

It can be tough sometimes, but just think of the money. When you’re scrubbing someone else’s vomit from the loo, when you’re rearranging bras on a mannequin, when you’re just clocking off at midnight. YOU ARE GETTING PAID. It might not be the most exciting wage, but it’ll be worth it when all of your friends are eating plain pasta for the third day in a row and you can afford take away pizza. Think of the glamour.

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First published here, and later featuredon Ones To Watch Media here.

Studenthood

Things I’m going to blow my loan on

Overdraft vs Student Finance England; round one

The C Word (or; third year fear)

The working student (Yorker Archives)