What is Warwick?

In this week’s edition of this newpaper, Sam Shirley argues that Warwick, for all its dynamism, lacks a common identity as a university.The individual student can often feel lost. It is only natural that students often make friends with people from their home countries, whether they are from Britain or Zambia.

The size of the university, the mind-boggling diversity and size of the student body and its relative youth, means that it is hard to impose a single inclusive identity onto Warwick’s 20,000 students. Warwick lacks traditions that can forge a common sense of belonging. Unlike other universities, especially in America, large numbers of students have never even watched a varsity sport’s game. One World Week and Top Banana are lively and hugely popular, but they are hardly rituals that can bind the student body into one organic whole.

However, that is exactly what makes Warwick a dynamic university. Apart from its solid academic record, Warwick’s student body is energetic and resourceful. Individuals are free to create their own space to express themselves and unleash their creative energies. From campaigning to student theatre there is always something at Warwick. The lack of a single identity means that individuals find their own fluid and highly nuanced identities. One can simulataneously be a History and Politics student, a Northerner, a member of student theatre, an American Football player, and a Union Councillor (if they can find the time).

This takes lots of the stuffiness out of life. Meeting people from so many wide backgrounds with a plethora of interests is what makes Warwick different. It is is precisely this creative energy that has helped Warwick climb to the top of the league tables in less than four decades. Warwick is almost on par with Oxbridge, despite the fact that the latter have a eight century head start.

Nonetheless, Shirley has a point. Our university often lacks a spirit of unity and what Shirely describes as a “healthy mystique”. Many students find it hard to choose from the plethora of identities on offer, and feel isloated and insignificant against the large and indifferent conglomerate that is the university. Finding an appropriate idenitity requires a large amount of effort and no small amount of luck. While students need the flexibility to shape their own identity, a certain level of collective spirit would help students feel at home at Warwick and truly thrive as students and individuals.