THE STAND: End of Beginnings

My friends from home say I sound posher since moving away. My Dad says “good.” I say I feel even more working class than in Glasgow, and I'm proud of it. I'm financially independent, I work a part-time job, I received my first passport two weeks ago, but I've worked hard to get on the right track for my dream career and I have a damn good chance at getting there.

St Andrews has gifted me the skills to listen to stories from a myriad of backgrounds, and the gratitude to realise that mine gives me resourcefulness, determination, and grit – as well as experience of the real world.

This year was underscored with my Duke of Edinburgh gold award, Premier Award dance exam, solo travelling to a big city for the first time, becoming a published writer, and a Shellies nomination. The achievements that stood out to me the most have nothing to do with my degree, but everything to do with feeling more confident than I ever have before. I have the confidence to chase what I want and not hide it, and it's paying off. I couldn't be happier or more certain that there really is a bright future ahead.

Credit: Sarah Fehr

One of my friends asked me recently what I'm proudest of from this year, and I couldn't quite place my answer. In full honesty, it's all of it. It's learning how to be a student and an adult and a human all at the same time. It's taking up new hobbies and progressing further than I ever imagined in the ones I already love. It's making it through the year with everything in tact and minimal crash-outs. I'm nothing like the person I was before I moved here, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

At dawn on East Sands on the first of May, I sat and considered my life choices. It's not unusual to have an existential crisis during May Dip I hear. But, as I sat freezing cold and soaking wet around the theatre bonfire, listening to my friends singing Gilbert and Sullivan at 5am, I definitely had a second of: “What on earth happened to get me to this exact moment?” I don't know if something went wrong somewhere down the line. If it did, then I'm thankful. I have four people who I call my best friends and countless more that I can confidently rely on for anything. And, yes, we may sing operetta at any hour of the day or night, but I like it that way.

And, just like that, I've lost a quarter of my time at university. First year is over. I'm grieving moving out of my beautiful first year halls (and slightly panicking that I haven't got a flat for next year yet). I'm grieving the fact that I won't spend summer in this little town. I'm grieving the fact I won't see my friends for a third of the year. I'm grieving the drastically small amount of time we actually spend at university, out of the full year.

Yet, I'm also excited for the summer. I'm going into four months of early morning dips, picnics in strawberry fields, adventuring to new lands, and the sort of lessons they couldn't teach you in tutorials if they tried.

I'm excited for next year. I'm looking forward to coming back and catching up with friends in the quad, stocking up on books and doing my course reading under the late September sun, wrapping my tongue around new words and my cheeks around the sort of laughter that gives you a stomach ache.

And I'm doing it with the world of knowledge I've already picked up from such a short time filled with unbelievable experiences here. Yes, one year of my degree is already over and done with. But I still have three more years of this amazing, mad place to worry about.

I'm not old yet.

Signing off,

Sophie Rose