Here’s a little about me. I’m Jeff Smith, 19 years old, and currently studying Music Management at Bucks New University. I’m in my second year and not really enjoying the expenses of living in a house. Luckily I’m enjoying pretty much everything else! Follow me on Twitter @flapjackman or email me on jeff [at] studentgems [dot] com about student stuff and I might blog about it! To see the full blog and add your comments visit studentgems.blogspot.com.

10th February 2009
Transfer to Durham?

Graduates from Durham University are being offered £2,000 to stay on and research rather than try to find their first job during the recession!

It has been clear for a while that there would be intense competition for jobs among graduates this year, due to the lack of available jobs during the ‘credit-crunch’. This has lead to the possibility of more students applying for post-graduate courses.

The University will award 102 scholarships of £2,000. This will apparently be available for most Masters Courses.

Prof Forster stated, "It's also about keeping the brightest and best at Durham and in the North East, but we want our graduates to go on and get the best jobs wherever they are."

The chance to gain a Post Graduate Degree, with a scholarship is great, and being encouraged to further our academic knowledge is also positive. But what is being missed is that it will result in more debt due to living costs, and monthly fees. The thought that this is OK because of the worth of a Post Graduate Degree is also misguided, as its worth will diminish with the more people that gain one.

In my opinion, this is not a solution, it merely avoids the problem.

Maybe I'm wrong? I'd love feedback as the credit crunch is a problem for all.

9th February 2009
This year is going well...

The Grammys, a night I usually pay little attention to. But…

I am VERY happy to discover that Blink-182 have, in Travis Barker’s words, “decided…to play music together again.”

New album, new tour!

I actually cannot wait!

"To put it simply, we’re back. We mean, really back.”

They better be…

So the Grammys do have their uses.

3rd February 2009
Google is 'white bread for the mind'

An article in the Times Online last month really hit home, and as I have an essay due this week I have been reminded of the warnings it gave.

Most students immediately head for Google when starting assignments. Some just want some inspiration, or an idea to start those crucial first few sentences. But far too many (including me) rely on online information, sometimes without knowing whether this information is correct. Already at university we are warned against sources such as Wikipedia, as anybody can change the information. “Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments."

This focus on students however is slightly misguided, as I'm sure that in all walks of life the importance of instant online information is growing.

It's a great shame that we cannot trust everything posted on the internet. Whilst this is unlikely to change, we must learn to discern useful sources from those that are untrustworthy.

Or even better, I might try to read more books!

2nd February 2009
Facebook plans to profit from private data

The wonders of snow. I had the joy of a free morning, with no lectures.

It seems amazing that Britain encounters some snow, and schools and universities close, buses stop running and so forth. How inconvenient. It's times like these that we can be thankful for the internet.

An article in the Telegragh yesterday reported on how facebook plans to exploit the vast amount of personal data it holds on over 150m users. Information from marital status to preferences will be available to multinational companies, allowing them to selectively target members to research the appeal of new products.
This exploitation comes as a result of facebook struggling to gain money from advertising, and I feel it is understandable that a networking site with the size and potential of facebook should want to capitalise financially. However, is it immoral to allow companies access to target people based on their personal information? Or is it a clever financial move by Facebooks' founder Mark Zuckerberg, which doesn't actually affect our privacy?

27th January 2009
Universities try new grading plan

From our earlier blog...

Let me introduce myself. I’m Charlie, 19 years old, and currently in my first second year at Leeds University studying Classics. Having recently been asked about my life at uni, I am writing a blog about all the highs and lows of student life. While focusing to some extent on the financial aspects (or lack of them) I’m also going to try and include general ‘stuff’ I’ve been up to.

2nd October 2008

It took slightly longer than I expected at one week, but my new house (or the ‘manor’, ‘castle’, ‘chateau’ etc as we now like to call it) now definitely feels like home. After much probing of my aching brain I’ve come to the conclusion that a new place is officially home when you stop waking up and wondering where the bally hell you are, or when you find yourself doing some kind of dadlike chore in your dressing gown like raking leaves, or changing lightbulbs, or something. All the new things to think about that new houses drag with them (water bills, anyone?) are disturbingly distracting me from the cruel joke that uni work this year actually COUNTS. The bare minimum simply will not do from now on, so I’m going to have to try and excel myself for the first time in a while, academically, possibly ever. Meanwhile, those freshly deceased leaves aren’t gonna be arranged into a neat pile themselves, adios.

18th August 2008

My deadend job of packing boxes in a dingy, dark warehouse is now a distant memory, for I am finally travelling Europe. Currently I am lording it about in Prague after five brilliant days in Amsterdam and Berlin, Berlin being especially amazing, although I did get a bit sick of eating literally three bratwursts a day (and being ashamed by how much better everything works over there). I can lay claim to having been to the most disgustingly brilliant club called Panorama. Built in a disused power station, the only rule is 'no cameras'. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Prague is even more beautiful than I imagined it, and it looks even better sipping a chilled pint that costs the same amount as a fun sized twix back home. The next stop is Brno, followed loosely by Budapest, Llubjana, a curious little lakeside party town called Siofok, and eventually a few other Eastern European cities/towns/hamlets. So much to look forward to, I have twenty six days left, but it's still not long enough.      

16th July 2008

I peer through the fresh morning light at a grubby laptop screen…page loading…still loading…scroll down…decipher a column of indistinct numbers…process information…first year – passed! I am swamped by a brief but numbing feeling of anticlimactic relief as I realise I do NOT have to do retakes this summer, achieving an almost respectable mark of 57 for my efforts. That’s another concern over with for now. All that’s left is saving money and hauling my body into a more acceptable shape, one that’s slightly easier on the eye and doesn’t scream ‘pale, malnourished looking boy’. Perhaps I should’ve thought of this before flying to Tenerife last week. The countless bronzed Spanish beauties seemed to gaze straight through me despite my vainest attempts to be noticed (alriite daaarlin’, in between flexing). In retrospect I fail to see why they should be attracted to the annual throng of burnt, booze fuelled, sometimes Burberry sporting Brits infiltrating their sunny paradise. Maybe we amuse them. Next time I go I’m going equipped with guns of steel and a thermo-nuclear tan, maybe even with a tribal tattoo, no matter how much it’ll embarrass my grandkids. Either that or I could focus my energy into getting a decent grade in my second year… well I’m not doing a degree in Spanish, so pass the spray-tan Jose.

27th June 2008

My jump from part-time dossing (university) to full-time work back home has gone smoother than I predicted. Two months ago if you told me I needed to shun my beauty sleep and get up SIX HOURS earlier than normal you’d have been met with a look of confusion, mirth, and probably pity as well. Alter my sleep pattern just to earn MONEY?! What do you think an overdraft is for you amateur?! Only joking, I don’t condone reckless spending, even if I do sometimes practise it. Anyway the point of me earning this cash, apart from funding a few cheeky drinks down the local (which seems to have its prices set in Zimbabwean dollars rather than pounds Sterling), is to do a bit of travelling round Europe for a month. The plan is Holland to Bulgaria, and pretty much everything we find in between. It’s time to broaden the horizons, drink questionable continental lagers, and befriend eccentric drifters with names like Hector and Petra. On my return like many travelling students I might have dreadlocks, a tribal tattoo and a dull story about how I ‘found myself’. There will undoubtedly be tales galore to tell future generations; even if some of them are vulgarly exaggerated (you see this scar? It’s from when I fought off a bear with nothing but a bratwurst and a Hungarian phrase-book). Surely this will make the grind of 9-5 work seem worth it? We’ll see.

29th May 2008

Freedom at last. From now on I’ll be soaking up sunrays instead of meaningless information. That’s right I’m dumping the library for its fit best mate – the beer garden. However, amongst all the sunlight, ice cream vans and relief I do get a sense of anti-climax rearing its ugly beige head. With exams finished, and people packing and leaving, it feels like the end of something rather than normal service resumed, and is somehow not quite the same. Perhaps I’m just moping because I’m the last to finish and everyone else has been galavanting about like the wide-eyed freshers they once were. Maybe a night of uninhibited hedonism might set me straight. Nothing like a few pints, some controversial dancing and a ghastly kebab to lift the spirits. In fact, I’m feeling better already.

7th May 2008

It was a bleak mid-spring day in Yorkshire. Post-lecture tea was being sipped and low-grade banter was being exchanged. I was casually reaching for yet another chocolate biscuit (I do need to seek professional help about this) and found that it was slightly misshapen. You could almost say it looked crumby. Even more low-grade banter aside my mate suggested sending an angry letter to the company, to see if we could get any free stuff, because, well, that’s the kind of thing we do. Ten minutes of writing, re-writing, tweaking and changing later we had something that was pure dynamite. Forget Shakespeare, Dickens and Orwell - nobody had written anything quite so powerful and emotive as this. The biscuit company would be overcome with remorse, literally moved to the core, and surely compensate us beyond our wildest dreams! We posted the letter including the dodgy biscuit rubbing our hands in anticipation, the world was ours… Now I’m not going to lie, it was a massive anti-climax when all we got was £2 biscuit vouchers and a generic apology letter from some faceless customer service robot, but the experience was character building, no?

Oh yeh and I’ve lost the vouchers.

30th April 2008

About a day ago our boiler conked out. This seemed bad at first because conventional wisdom says that cold showers are unpleasant – I must say I disagree. Obviously I was reluctant to hop in at first, but after taking another look at my pale grubby body decided to throw caution to the wind and just went for it. :O the water’s bitingly cold... but it becomes just about bearable after you’ve soldiered through the first several seconds of your sub-conscience screaming at you to try more conventional past-times. I know ‘bitingly cold’ and ‘bearable’ hardly paint a tempting picture, but be patient. The unique treat from all this comes from actually getting out the shower and back into your warm room. The relief is so great you’re literally buzzing with positive energy (the legal kind), and as I write I feel almost glowing! What I’ve concluded from all this is the following –

Hard days work/stressful day = you need a HOT shower as you’ve earned it

Lazy day/day where you need to get stuff done = you need a COLD shower to give you a kick-start
 
So when the boiler’s fixed, I’m going to employ a simple strategy of cold shower in morning, warm shower of smug reward for hard work in evening. It’s fool-proof. Maybe I'll get some work done now.

21st March 2008

Easter! That time when the English weather splutters into life again and the sun starts to return, kicking and screaming, into the sky. I’ve decided against going straight home from Leeds, despite the lure of numerous drunken reunions with old friends. Instead I stopped off in East Anglia to stay with my grandparents for the week. Fear not, I’m not getting soft on you; I just had a half-assed version of what addicts call a ‘moment of clarity’ and decided I need a place with no distractions to try to catch up on the biblical amount of work I have to do. Also, I’m trying to get my body into some kind of socially acceptable shape by going running, which seemed disastrous at first (at one point on day one I thought my heart was going to stop) but seems to be getting slightly easier. Despite being ridiculously well fed (I almost feel guilty at the amount) and cared for I am still looking forward to getting back home. I need to spend some quality time in my beloved Packhorse pub, which due to some money-grabbing, corporation owning fat-cats making poor business decisions, is going to be shut down along with the other pub in our town in a couple of weeks. When they close I have big plans to build a prohibition-era speakeasy (aka illegal tavern) in my house, so keep an eye on your studentgems page, bargirls and evil henchmen are needed asap.

6th March 2008

Having a bit of a nightmare this week. Our kitchen is beginning to represent an X-rated episode of life of grime. The sink is blocked (and I mean six months worth of pasta blocked) and it looks like Mr Muscle just isn’t going to cut it here, perhaps some weapons grade plutonium? There’s also a funny smell of rotting meat that I think may ACTUALLY be our hamster trapped under a spare baked bean tin or something. Recently I strolled in wanting nothing more than a leisurely cup of tea and slice of toast – not much to ask – and you know how if the remaining bread has got a hint of mould on it you can just pick it off and it should be fine right? That’s normal right? Anyway the remaining bread appeared to be cocooned in what I can only describe as the bubonic plague. I felt like I was in 15th century London for a split second but hearing good old Jeremy Kyle’s voice on the TV brought me straight back to reality like a cold slap. Anyway I’m off to try and extract some penicillin from a leftover sandwich, if I save up enough of it I can trade it for some of that plutonium for the sink. Ta-rah.

28th February 2008

Let me tell you a story. Yesterday afternoon Bruce Lee crept up behind me and administered a roundhouse kick straight to my head. While I was unconscious and twitching he proceeded to steal almost all of my remaining starbursts, leaving barely enough for sustenance. Cackling away he hopped on a penny farthing and made haste to the evil sweet shop owner to hand him over the colourful treasure. The pair shook hands and went their separate ways. To be fair I did owe the evil sweetshop owner a fair few starbursts for giving me somewhere to live but come on! I’m broke! So I dusted myself down, had a cup of tea, and am now going out to drown my sorrows. Isn’t uni life great.

NB. Bruce Lee                  = Halifax Bank
       My Head                   = My finances
       Starbursts                 = Money
       Evil sweetshop owner = Leeds University Accommodation Service

5th February 2008

I just got in from a night out at a controversially named bar called ‘Hukaz’ and I must say, was very impressed! They had this fantastic funk/jazz cover band (peculiarly) named  ‘Chunky Butt Funky’. They were armed with bass riffs that could melt a glacier, obscene trumpet solos and a frontman who’s Barry White-esque voice made me question my sexuality! Almost. Anyway you may be wondering, how can this student afford multiple nights out when he should be studying? Who does he think he is drinking gin and tonics (it IS a man’s drink) in these strange place with such wonderfully odd bands? Apart from the fact the slice of lime is his most regular source of Vitamin C? Well I am very possibly hooking up with a job through studentgems.com! Huzzah! I won’t go into detail but involves doing this, but with more writing. So next time you see a boy stumbling with a gin and tonic with funk music playing somewhere in West Yorkshire, fear not! Anyway I’m going to go listen to some downloaded Chunky Butt Funky tunes, Charlie out. charlie@studentgems.com

15th January 2008

Some people say that panic is a bad thing. I say it’s a vital part of success in exams! Thanks to panic I managed enough last minute revision to (just about) not crash and burn horribly last week. ‘That’s it!’ I thought when the last paragraph of the last paper (Ancient Greek Philosophy, if you’re asking) was finished, ‘my worries for the beginning of the semester are over now!’ Well, not quite. One word – housing. The annual Leeds students panicked house hunting extravaganza (it’s not really called that) is reaching fever pitch, and I was successfully caught up in it. I’m lucky though, I knew who I wanted to live with and after one day of searching we found a great little place two minutes away from our favourite pub and with a friendly landlord. Although for most students there is a happy ending like mine, this doesn’t happen to everyone. Some are doomed to a year in a house resembling a squat with a sprinkling of people they don’t even really know yet, and a landlord who will steal their deposits faster than it takes Linford Christie to run 100 metres or Lewis Hamilton to do a lap at Silverstone. Unlike exam periods, looking for a house is certainly the time NOT to panic. 

More next week,
Charlie - charlie@studentgems.com

11th December 2007

Well the Christmas period is here and I am – bored. My university is one of the first to break up, meaning I have several days of solitude before I see most of my old mates. Unnaturally, I have decided to use this time productively. A bit of healthy eating, bit of gym, a sprinkling of revision and, erm, altering sleep patterns. I’m sure any of you that have had to lay awake until birds twitter as a result of habitual nights out will understand. My personal favourite is when it’s the summer and there is actually sunlight coming through the window when you’re trying to sleep, good times. All this free time also gives me room to think a lot (which is dangerous, I don’t always recommend it). I’ve even started short-listing New Year’s resolutions. Find a decent job? That can stay on. That’s a high priority. Learn Italian? Could be useful one day, unlikely though. Get fit / attend every lecture? Maybe I’m just dreaming now. What do you reckon? Email me on charlie@studentgems.com

Charlie

27th November 2007

Well the end of the first semester is dawning and I am literally penniless. Having horror stories for bank statements is becoming far too common for my liking. I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it though, far from it. The countless nights of drunken misbehaviour with my new northern friends will be remembered for years to come, even if remembering means other people’s accounts/the pictures on Facebook. Still, a regular source of income would be extremely handy. How else am I going to fund the same lifestyle in semester 2? I recently applied for a job promoting red bull, and if that doesn’t work out it looks like it’ll have to be bar work. As gruelling a job as it is, especially in Leeds, it was never going to be easy. Hopefully over the holidays I will get some work through studentgems.

As I write this I’m also trying to organise my night. Space Tuesday is upon us, probably my favourite night out in Leeds. With 80p Sambuca shots you can’t really go wrong though! Only problem is, I feel completely worn out after the last two weeks festivities. ‘Overdoing it a bit’ doesn’t really do it justice – I’m thinking ‘drunken apocalypse’ is much more fitting. But alas I am sipping some tea, applying the aftershave and getting on with it. I think around here they call it ‘manning up’. Wish me luck; Saturday is the brutal ‘Otley Run’ pub crawl. If I still have all my remaining motor functions you’ll hear from me again Sunday!

Charlie