Before the first Welcome event, before the first lecture, before the first social, my voyage upon University had already commenced. You see, I say voyage and not journey, because I perceive the endless string of my academic experiences at University as a wee boat, guided by the currents and weathering vicious storms or serene calm. Sometimes, I’ll be a silent observer on this vessel, and other times, I’ll be at the wheel, desperately trying to steer away from rapids, obstacles and to keep afloat! Either way, we must now return to shore, back to the original story I have digressed from. As soon as I accepted the offer at the University of Edinburgh, I essentially flung myself onto the boat and started surveying the surroundings, wondrously taking in all the available opportunities! Naturally, I started out by looking at EUSA and how many societies were on offer! I made a mental note of which I would check out and then looked at accommodation – my priorities were clearly in line that day.

Degree change

Etymologically, the word “university” testifies to its own waves of change, undergoing Latin, Medieval French, and finally, English transformations. Over the years, its meaning has come to be associated with universal, holistic, and societal. To me, these words coincide perfectly with my voyage. I started out as an International Relations student, and, after my first year, realising the appeal of statistics and their asset in research, I applied to switch to International Relations with Quantitative Methods. Don’t you worry though, I did not have to switch boats, it was merely refurbished and painted with a new coat for this new chapter of the voyage.

SLICCs

Through word of mouth, I heard about a curious opportunity for first and second year students called SLICCs. Inquisitive, I decided to take this initiative – just to see how would go. I submitted two applications, unsure about how academic they had to be. Plan A was learning a language – and a very uncommon one at that! And plan B was doing an internship. I was going to do both over the summer, but ideally, I wanted plan A to be successful as learning Croatian is a longer project and I liked the external incentive.

Thankfully, both were accepted but I decided to go with Plan A, which brought me to learn about flexibility, patience and trusting the process, as an often impulsive, perfectionist lass who likes to stick to the original plan. Nevertheless, it turned out I was very grateful for this flexibility, having set unrealistic expectations (arriving to B1 on my own after two months). After my one-month immersion period, I had one month of self study, which I paired with online Croatian classes with a tutor. I was then at the brink of A2 but not quite at B1.

Enthusiastic about learning, my little boat had turned into a speedboat! Thanks to my positive experience in my year 1 SLICC, I reapplied the second year. More confident in my topic, I only submitted one application: revising and learning programming through online resources. Remember my degree change? It turns out that statistics necessitates lots of data analysis, and therefore, I needed to become proficient in coding in different languages (SPSS, Stata and R). With the skills learnt in my first SLICC, and my newfound ability to let go of perfectionism when necessary, I progressed a lot quicker and met all my projected goals. Thus, with my self-confidence revived, I sailed off, looking for new chances to grow and learn.

Conclusion

May 29, 2025