Diary of a Fresher
23.08.2020
Dear diary,
tomorrow is the first day of orientation week. I still find it very surreal that I got accepted to study English at the University of Helsinki and to be frank, I feel like I need to pinch myself. Or do I? Because if this is a dream, it’s the best dream I’ve had in my entire life and waking up would suck. Anyway, I hope I’ll fit in. I’ll be surrounded by new names, faces and personalities and it’s honestly a little scary.
We’ll have to wait and see.
29.08.2020
Hello dearest diary of mine.
Orientation week is now over, and boy was that a wild ride. Well, by wild ride I mean the meetings with other freshers and our tutors because for obvious reasons, official meetings with teachers explaining how university works aren’t the craziest events of all time, even if they’re via Zoom.
I can imagine that organising orientation week with the pandemic in mind was odd and somewhat stressful for all parties involved and understandably there were some difficulties with live streams and their connections, but as a whole, I think it was a success. We were provided with all the information we needed without the risk of a coronavirus outbreak within our university.
In addition, our wonderful tutors had organised a myriad of fun activities for us all throughout the week: Sublympics on Monday, Pub Quiz on Tuesday, Amazing race on Wednesday, and then picnics on Thursday and Friday. I remember Pub Quiz especially well because I just had so much fun. We were given random trivia questions like “how many stripes are there in the US flag” and “what is the name of the tower that houses Big Ben”. Our team (team Vitsi) won, by the way! I knew knowing the names of all five Brontë sisters would one day come in handy.
It was really nice to get to know everyone during this week. Of course, we’re not all like… best friends quite yet, but this week definitely sped up the process of that. I don’t know how often I’ll see any of these people in the following months, though, which is a weird thought now that I’m used to seeing them every single day.
Also, lectures are starting on Monday, which is exciting. My schedule for this first period doesn’t look too crazy, but I might be wrong about that.
10.9.2020
Dear diary,
I was so incredibly and utterly wrong. Lectures only started last week but there’s so much stuff to take in that frankly, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I knew that university wasn’t going to be a piece of cake, but holy smokes I feel like I need a week-long break already!
I like to think of myself as an organised person, but I clearly need to try much harder. My notes are all over the place, I keep forgetting to drink my morning coffee and I don’t even have regular sleeping habits. This has made me lag behind my personal schedule quite a bit, but thankfully, I’ve still managed to keep up with the courses. Here’s to hoping that I’ll be able to get myself back on track soon...
On another note, SUB’s fuksiaiset were held yesterday around the city centre campus. There was a hilarious dress code: wear anything but a hat as a hat. So, we had to find something we could use as a hat that was never meant to be a hat. Mine was a small candy jar that I filled with Marianne candies that I tied around my head with a ribbon.
For the actual event, we were divided into different teams and I was in Team England. With our teams, we walked around the Helsinki centre to all kinds of checkpoints and carried out various tasks. We sang, improvised a news report, guessed songs based on Google translations and so, so much more.
It was super windy, and it rained a lot, so we all got absolutely soaked, but I think it was worth it. I had a blast and thankfully, I didn’t catch a cold.
25.09.2020
I don’t even know why I keep writing “dear diary” before every single entry. It’s not like a piece of paper is going to respond one day with “dear Robi” or anything. Anyways, moving on:
A month down, god knows how many to go. I could try and count them, but I’m not a mathematician so why bother? I’d probably mess up. (Ha-ha, original joke about students in the Faculty of Arts being unable to count, ha-ha. I know, okay? I know.)
This first month has been hectic. Approximately five new assignments every week, lots of classwork, and page after page after page of notes. I think I’ve written about fifty pages of notes for spoken English alone and another fifty for the introduction course to phonetics and linguistics.
But despite all of that, I finally managed to get my schedule back together and that has improved my overall well-being drastically. I’ve been able to keep up with all of my assignments and lectures and I’ve had more time to relax. I think dividing big projects into smaller sections on my to-do list is a thing I’ll try to keep up because it’s super helpful. For example: I planned out an essay on the day we were given instructions, wrote the first version the next day and then spent a few days polishing it one paragraph at a time and I was very happy with how it turned out. I’m an anxious, easily stressed perfectionist so studying can be a hassle, but with proper time management and enough rest, I’ll get through anything.
I also have a very supportive community of freshers and tutors around me, and I know that I can always ask for help if I need it. I’ve already made lots of new friends in university and I know the bonds we’ve formed will last a lifetime.
