Student life through the Lens – an Alternate Perspective.

So here I am, a fresher at Birmingham City University. Two weeks in and I haven't lost my nerve, haven't packed up my things and decided I can't hack the ever growing pile of assignments, late night study sessions, last minuet essay sweats and the colossal mountain of debts that are all heading my way. I've just about figured out my way round the library, made at least one friend, sussed out where there's always a free computer and have been well and truly introduced to the campus bar (the less said about this the better). Things are looking good. But there's one small (yet very important) difference between me and all those other slightly bewildered looking fresh-faced first-timers still missing their mummies: I'm a Postgraduate MA student....how different student life looks from here. It's an odd sensation when you re-enter the familiar shelter of education after flirting with the career world and the inevitable nine to five office drudge that is the destiny of so many promising students (however entrepreneurial and enterprising you may really be!) I feel a bit like the old fogey in a club full of teenagers or the embarrassing relative that reckons their really hip because of their pointedly youthful CD collection. I am just as much a student as the next undergrad – indeed, my shiny new NUS card, and saviour of my wardrobe (thank you Topshop), confirms this. Yet, I feel as though I'm looking into that world of 'studentdom' from outside it's comforting walls – through the lens of someone standing apart from that student bubble. Throughout my undergraduate degree I felt like I was in some kind of bizarre vacuum where the only people I ever saw were students, students, students....be this at home, on a night out or at uni. Real life – without that beautiful bottomless pit of borrowed money – could wait. Well, I suppose you could say the bubble has now popped. A note to all future MA students: Postgraduate courses are nothing like the one you took first time round. Granted all undergrads, whatever the discipline, have to pull their finger out at some time or other - usually in the final year when the dreaded dissertation is looming - in order to pull it all off and keep the parents smiling. But there is also (it cannot be denied) a fair amount of drinking and sleeping, both through lectures and in lectures, that make up a large amount of the undergraduate lifestyle – generally speaking. Two long hard weeks into my chosen MA course, Event and Exhibition Management, and I'm realising this is serious stuff. My peers here are in it for more than the day long 'happy hours' and one night stand mistakes that uni so readily offers - if that's what your after. People are here because they want to work – work HARD – and want to make a difference in their chosen field (come blood, sweat and tears.) Whereas undergrad degrees can often be all about excess - living free of restraint and money worries (in theory) - postgrad degrees are as much about sacrifice. Without much funding available for postgraduate courses (quite frankly slim to none in the current economic climate) sacrifices have to be made. To my great despair I am shackled to life at the parental home throughout my MA course as the wages from my part time job simply couldn't cover the rent anywhere half decent in the Birmingham area. Sure you get more meals cooked for you than not, an efficiently run laundry service and a hugely discounted rate on rent but so much for independence (what does that feel like again?)... NOT where I saw myself at 23, going on 24. To my comfort though I know a fair few people on my course who are facing the same fate. When it comes to the crunch I suppose you have to ask yourself whether the current undesirable circumstances are worth putting up with for the benefits you'll reap from the course a year on. After all, I could always set myself up in a cushy temp job again, get a place of my own and feel every bit the 'young professional'. But I'm done with counting the minuets till lunch, sneaking a peak on facebook when the boss isn't in and moving from my seat for one thing and one thing only....biscuits. I'm hoping this extra year of toil will pay dividends when I enter the job market once more giving me an edge over the swarms of fresh graduates as they try their luck in a cut throat market. Returning to university is both strange and exciting - I have a feeling that this time round my experience won't be so much defined by pubs, parties and pints but by perseverance and personal growth, but who's to say what's better? By Ellie Rance