Friday, March 29Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Author: Yasmeen Frasso

An Interview With Miss Surrey 2016
Features

An Interview With Miss Surrey 2016

Our features editor, Yasmeen Frasso, recently spoke to Sophie King to talk about her experiences in the world of beauty pageants. Having recently been crowned as Miss Surrey 2016, 27 year old Sophie is now going to be taking part in the Miss Great Britain finals. What inspired you to run for Miss Surrey 2016? Had you had any prior experiences with beauty pageants or was it completely out of the blue? Last year I had a very close call when I contracted Meningitis B and Septicaemia. After getting out of intensive care and returning home I have felt a new lease of life. I now really appreciate that we are not invincible and we must make the most of each day. I tend to say yes to everything now. I had always been interested in pageants, and I just thought ‘Why not!?’ so I applied and h...
Life With Poland’s Syndrome
Features

Life With Poland’s Syndrome

Most people who know me will have, by now, realised that there’s something a bit different about me – I have one and a half hands. As much as I like to joke and attribute this to being the survivor of a shark attack, or having an accident with a washing machine, or even that I resorted to autocannibalism whilst stranded on a desert island, the reality is not quite so dramatic. I was born with a condition called Poland’s Syndrome which is pretty rare, affecting roughly one in 100,000 children (don’t worry I don’t expect anybody to have heard of it). It’s basically when the pectoral muscle in the chest is either underdeveloped or fully absent in a person which consequently causes an underdeveloped arm and hand. The severity varies from case to case and the cause of it is still ambiguous. ...
Features

Lessons Learnt from First Year

Whilst it seems like only a few weeks ago that we bright-eyed fresher’s moved in to RoHo’s stunning campus, first year is sadly coming to an end. It’s been a busy year and a lot has been learnt so I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts with you. On living the ‘adult life’ You turn 18 and arrive at university with the expectations that living away from the security of home will miraculously transform you into a fully-fledged adult overnight. That is far from true. Life away from home comes with new responsibilities and challenges, like cooking, doing laundry and managing your money. All of these things require a degree of maturity but the expectation of becoming an actual ‘adult’, in anything but age, will not be met. Even some third years finishing their degree say that they don’t ...
WedderBURN It Down
Features

WedderBURN It Down

Let’s face it, when we got to uni as innocent little Freshers we were all quick to pick up stereotypes about the halls we live in. For instance, if someone says they’re from Founders they’re likely to be met with, “how do you cope sharing a bathroom?” Invited over to Runnymede? Well you might want to check first if that’s Runnymede one or two. If you encounter an unfortunate soul from Kingswood, the glance of pity they’re met with says it all really. And Wedderburn isn’t immune to these stereotypes. In fact, it’s notoriously infamous for its fire alarms. This academic year alone, there have been 28 alerts from the four blocks of Wedderburn, many of which were in the early hours of the morning. Not only has this been an extreme annoyance when it comes to prying yourself out o...
CampusNet Goes Down After a Suspected Cyber Attack
News

CampusNet Goes Down After a Suspected Cyber Attack

Anyone that has been on campus today will most likely have noticed that the RHUL CampusNet wifi has been particularly temperamental, with certain web pages not loading, for instance, TurnItIn. Obviously this is a massive inconvenience, especially during the most chaotic week of term with many students having had deadlines earlier on in the day. But this isn’t an issue specific to RoHo and rather is affecting most universities across the country because the network – JANET – has been down following, what is suspected to be, a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) cyber attack. DDoS attacks work by created fake traffic to a webpage causing it to become overwhelmed, which in turn, slows it down and makes it inaccessible. So whilst Moodle, Campus Connect and RHUL emails are working normal...
The Cost of Scrapping Maintenance Grants
Opinion

The Cost of Scrapping Maintenance Grants

When I was going through the UCAS process there were two things that lessened the stress and caused me a bit of relief. The first was the obvious news of knowing that my chosen universities saw me as worthy of an offer. But what was perhaps even more reassuring was finding out that I was eligible for a maintenance grant. Like the majority of people, the weeks and months leading up to university were filled with financial discussions – how much allowance you would get, how you would pay for your accommodation, what your budget should be etc. But for those of us who are from lower-income backgrounds, the worry was all that bit more prevalent. After applying for student finance back in the earlier months, I remember thinking of what my plan B would be, should I receive a lower loan than...