15 May The end of an era – Homesick no more (Hannah Turner article)
Article on my website with full layout: http://hannahlouiseturner.co.uk/written/elementor-438/
If someone had said to me 18 months ago, that I’d be finishing uni with a first-class dissertation in my back pocket and was about to move to London permanently…well they wouldn’t. Going into the second year of my journalism degree in London, I was ready to pack it in. I didn’t know what I wanted and more than anything, I was homesick. Doncaster, Yorkshire is precisely 175 miles away from London South Bank University, which was 175 miles too far for me. I missed the comfort of home, the easiness of it all.
Research shows that up to 70% of students will experience homesickness in their early days at university. That’s completely normal, but I felt like I had an opposite experience. In my first year, I never wanted to go back home, I had a great group of friends and was intoxicated 99.99% of the time. But when second year hit and a lot of my friends had dropped out of uni, I wanted to do the same. In 2016, 27% of first year students had either dropped out before Christmas or were contemplating making the move before summer.
For me and my friends, university was just another 3 years that we didn’t have to be adults. So maybe that’s why so many young people take the plunge without realising what they’re getting themselves into.
Uni is hard. Of course, it’s fun and you really do make BFF’s but you must be ready for it to change your life too. You evolve as a person, I personally think it’s made me a much better version of myself. I’m braver, more independent and my confidence has sky rocketed. I do think a lot of it is down to the city I chose to study in. London, you will never know how grateful I am towards you.
I’ve been in love with London since I was 14 and I first stepped out of Kings Cross station into the lively streets, filled with smart people in suits on their phones and young, cool people dressed in bright colours. That feeling, that buzzing, electric feeling of London is what I love the most. It’s like no other. Unfortunately, it does go away but that feeling your left with after? Home.
To feel like London is my home is one of the best feelings I have ever and will ever have. Discovering which of the many bridges has your favourite view (mines Waterloo bridge), getting to know the guy in the corner shop so much that he gets a special brand of rum in just for you and the knowledge that there will always be a part of London you have never been and are yet to find.
Unless you live here, you won’t understand how much the world changes and how much you change once you leave. Other students from my uni, who aren’t from London, know how it is. Jordan from Manchester said, “I always knew I belonged here, getting here is the hard part but once you are, you’ll never leave.” Georgia from Reading said, “When I was in school, I used to travel to London nearly every weekend, the fact that uni gave me the opportunity to live in London was a dream come true.”
So, even though it’s the end of an era. An amazing era I might add. I am so ready for the next adventure. C’mon London bring it on.
