Editors’ Letter – “This time I really am a finalist”

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s I go into my fourth, final year as an undergrad at Warwick, the thought of this freshers’ fortnight is making me feel positively ancient. It’s quite silly, I know. After all I am still 21, which places me in the “young” category and yet there is something about going through it all again that feels different.

The similarities between being a fourth year and being elderly are numerous. Some of us have to downsize as the housemates/kids have all moved out, more friends than not have moved on, you start having uncontrollable urges to shout at the youngsters to get off your lawn… If only I could get a seniors’ discount on my bus pass!

Part of the problem, I think, is that last year I was a “second-hand finalist” of sorts. How could I not be, when so many of my friends were actually going through it themselves? All the stress of applying for those dream jobs (and the not so dreamy ones), the excitement of making those travel plans or getting the dream jobs, all the hours spent in the library revising and, in the end, the many bittersweet goodbyes.

And after such a dénouement, here I am, back again. Leamington starts to feel more like home than home does, and life before Warwick feels a lifetime ago; it starts to feel routine to come back, but it’s not.

I would be lying if I said that having an extra year to avoid “the real world” didn’t play a major part when I chose to do an integrated Masters. So did the fact that I get to do it for the price of just another undergrad year (£3,000 in my case, because I’m a relic from the past).

But after another grueling exam season, I started to think “can I really go through this again?”. For better or worse, a separate Masters will never affect your BA/BSc; that 1st or 2:1 that you got is in the bank, so to speak.

If we were to write memoirs about our time at university, a three-year degree could be neatly divided into a nice little trilogy or maybe the beginning, middle and end of a film that we’ll call “The best years of your life”. Will this extra year be the sequel (ahem, Indiana Jones…) that no one really wanted?

I’ve decided to think of it as an explosive Part Two of my final act, much like any respectable blockbuster trilogy nowadays.

If this is an end, I’ll make it a memorable one. And really, regardless of what stage you’re at, shouldn’t we all make it as memorable as we can?