Goodbye Warwick: tales from my student years

With the end of the year approaching and a whole cohort of students ready to graduate (albeit rather unconventionally), three writers look back on their years at Warwick and say a final ‘goodbye’ to their time here. Whether they are going to miss the beauty of the campus, late-night trips to Rootes or hot chocolates in Curiositea – it’s clear that these writers treasure their time spent at Warwick. 

Evianne Suen

There are lots of things I’m going to miss about Warwick. My first time seeing Krispy Kreme and Monster Munch was at Rootes Grocery Store. Coming from Hong Kong, figuring out meal deals, and working out the best possible deal you can get during a midnight trip to Tesco was a challenge, especially when I had to walk all the way from Westwood. I remember being extremely disappointed by the music in the Copper Rooms and then eventually learning to love it, and even more so, purple.

I’ll miss genuinely thinking my last breath would be drawn in a mosh pit and really, really, really trying my best to get past the bouncers when I didn’t bring my student ID and having them still remember who I am two years on. Seeing the dangling flowery vine tree behind Senate House, swearing I’d take a photo there, putting it off for three years, and massively regretting not doing it makes me so wish I’d just done it the first time.

You can’t just say you miss just one thing. I love the parts I hated because it’s all part of something greater than that one moment. The times I hated my degree because medieval English was like seeing the dentist when every single tooth has a cavity, but it taught me Thomas More and I see Sir Gawain references in cartoons and think, wow, that’s pretty cool. Without that, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with American Horror or writing about human rights two years later.

I can’t say I’ll miss the people most because that would be cheating. Of course I will, and I’ve also already written about that again and again. In the end, I’ve found that there’s too much to love when you try to forget. 

Cecily Grace Morgan 

Kept from campus by the coronavirus crisis and completing my final “exams” while I’m sat in my living room munching on Oreos – you might say that my final term of university isn’t exactly the flurry of breakdowns over my dissertation, stress-eating cake in Curiositea, and post-exam parties that I was imagining. Although my Warwick experience hasn’t ended conventionally, the three wonderful years that I spent there is somewhat of a consolation prize. It’s difficult to pinpoint something specific that I’ll miss about Warwick because I could make a list longer than the Terrace Bar cocktail menu, but I think what I’ll miss above all is the campus. 

I’ll miss the tight-knit nature of campus life. I’ll miss grabbing a coffee in the Humanities Café and bumping into three people I know, I’ll miss late-night snack runs to Rootes Grocery Store, I’ll miss sitting with my laptop and pretending to do work in various study spots. I’ll especially miss having friends at my fingertips. With everyone on campus all day, it was always easy to link up for a lunch or a study session or a good old rant about coursework. This cosiness may be a bit intense for some but for me, it was the perfect bridge between school and adult life, and I’ll always look back on our Warwick bubble and all the memories that my friends and I created there, with incredible fondness and love. 

Goodbye, Warwick, miss you always. 

Alessandra French

Warwick has always felt like a place of opportunity. It offers the chance to be whoever or whatever you want, however you like. People talk about the ‘Warwick Bubble’, and while my first-year self felt its constraints, as a finalist I will miss its support. My finalist self already misses moaning about the lack of parking spaces and the buses. As well as glaring at people who play loud music on the silent floors in the Library and the undecipherable design of the Humanities building, but as a grumpy old finalist mourning the last third term I never had, I hold onto the memory of late nights rehearsing student theatre. The lectures I walk into slightly late to sit in the seat my friend saved for me, the fancy-dress socials, the ridiculous nights out and the grotty smoking areas of the student clubs.

There is nothing like the feeling of being around some of the smartest, most driven people you could meet but they’re the same people who, in first year, tried to cook chicken medium-rare. By the time you graduate, you realise the people that matter, their priceless value in your life and the lessons they’ve taught you. To be sickeningly romantic about it, I think of Warwick like the best kind of nostalgic love story – though not as stylish as Normal People. I met people at Warwick that I will love for the rest of my life.