Lifestyle – The Orbital

Inside Jess Bantleman’s Rise to Head of Social Media at Hearst

7Jun

By Fatima DadabhoyNo Comments

Lifestyle

Inside Jess Bantleman’s Rise to Head of Social Media at Hearst

By Fatima Dadabhoy, Senior Lifestyle Editor In my interview with Jess, she reflects on how Orbital Magazine shaped her post-grad life, pivotal moments in her career, and the strategy behind building her own version of fortune. Question: How did you first become involved with Orbital, and what drew you to the Lifestyle section specifically? Answer: I became involved in Orbital during my first week at uni at the Students’ Union fair. I’ve always been interested in lifestyle, fashion, and beauty, and that’s kind of where I thought my interests were most aligned. So naturally, when I joined Orbital, that’s what I wanted to be part of. Question: When you think back to your earliest days at Orbital, what stands out most vividly? Answer: When I think back to my earliest days, I gu...

From Lecture Halls to Boardrooms: Zaid Khayal on post-grad life

9May

By Fatima DadabhoyNo Comments

Lifestyle, News

From Lecture Halls to Boardrooms: Zaid Khayal on post-grad life

By Fatima Dadabhoy, Senior Lifestyle Editor A conversation on ambition, work ethic, and pre/post-grad life. 1. What was your time at Royal Holloway like, and what are you doing now? My time at Royal Holloway was a lot of fun it was both intellectually challenging and personally formative. Studying Economics gave me a structured way to understand how markets, incentives and human behaviour intersect. I valued how I was taught how to think, not just what to think. It was during Covid times, and we got to experience everything first hand. We endured online exams and lectures but overall, the experience really did prepare me for the working world. I now work for Deloitte Middle East as an analyst within the Strategy, Risk and Transactions. Working with different clients across ...

40th Anniversary Feature: One More Editor’s Letter?…The Orbital EIC’s 2024-2025

17Feb

By Madeline SidgwickNo Comments

Features, Lifestyle

40th Anniversary Feature: One More Editor’s Letter?…The Orbital EIC’s 2024-2025

By Madeline Sidgwick, Senior News Editor, and Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis, Senior Lifestyle Editor At risk of sounding like a broken record to those that have read our editors’ letters in the 24-25 issues of The Orbital, for the anniversary issue myself and Eve thought we would come together and do some reflecting. We hope to provide some inspiration for future editors and writers and provide the final push for anyone on the fence about joining The Orbital in any capacity. How The Magazine Developed Us ? Eve: Stepping into the role of Deputy EIC in 2024 was extremely daunting. In full transparency, when you end up getting a role that you have wanted for a long time, there is a lot of self doubt when you actually step into it. I knew that I wanted to replicate the leg...

Are Perceptions of Witchcraft Changing at Royal Holloway?

17Feb

By Lily GregoryNo Comments

Lifestyle

Are Perceptions of Witchcraft Changing at Royal Holloway?

By Lily Gregory, Senior Agony Aunt Even from the ancient times, witchcraft existed and was considered powerful. In Ancient Greece, we have figures like Circe, Medea, and the goddess Hekate. Their stories are found in several male-dominated myths and stories, such as Homer’s Odyssey and Jason and the Argonauts by Apollonius of Rhodes. Some say that Zeus himself, king of the Greek pantheon, would not argue against Hekate. Her power, as well as the power of other witches from her time, couldn’t be denied. But from the 15th century onwards, after the Witch Hunt that took place across Europe and Northern America, ideas towards witches and paganism turned sour. Nursery rhymes became common amon...

FEATURE: Words of encouragement from your working-class Editor-in-Chief

11Feb

By Ruby SaggersNo Comments

Lifestyle

FEATURE: Words of encouragement from your working-class Editor-in-Chief

Ruby Saggers, Editor-in-Chief Content Warning: Mentions of cancer, bereavement, and bullying Being Editor-in-Chief during our forty year celebration of The Orbital is certainly a recognised privilege. This landmark has elicited particularly heavy reflection in myself, on top of the dread I already feel in my final teaching term as an undergraduate. My biggest reflection, however, is on how doubtful my seniors had always been of me - and how I have subsequently managed to prove them wrong. I hope that this piece gives you inspiration, working-class or not, to keep pushing regardless of outside opinions and assumptions based on the life handed to you. At birth, much of my life had already been set in stone. My father, once a hardworking scaffolder, had been diagnosed with a b...

“Say It Again?…But a Little Slower This Time”: Navigating University Life With a Northern Accent

11Feb

By Madeline SidgwickNo Comments

Lifestyle

“Say It Again?…But a Little Slower This Time”: Navigating University Life With a Northern Accent

By Madeline Sidgwick, Senior News Editor Coming from the North East of England, moving South for university was always on my bucket list. I have always had, and still do, the ability to romanticise London, posh accents and the undeniable relevancy of living in the South. My personal experience as someone that possesses quite a strong regional accent has been interesting to say the least. I have had my accent described as everything from ‘charming’ to ‘chavy’ and on one occasion was asked to ‘slow down I actually cannot understand what you are saying’. Before university I would have never identified myself as having a regional accent or coming across as stereotypically Northern in my personality– whatev...

Let’s be honest, Am I too good at being a single woman?

28Jan

By Evelyn Fernandez-JarvisNo Comments

Lifestyle

Let’s be honest, Am I too good at being a single woman?

By Senior Lifestyle Editor, Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis Since the British Vogue article was released in October, questioning ‘Is having a boyfriendembarrassing now?’, I suddenly feel extremely validated as a single woman. Is thiswomen’s way of fighting back at toxic masculinity? I find this wave of opposing apartnership something that needs to be given more time to digest. In the age of Olivia Deanand Chante Joseph, there is a massive shift towards women romanticising activities asmundane as walking around the park, to using their empowerment by focusing on herselfand her future. With the emphasis on romantic love becoming less prominent I started toask myself: Why? Let's start with this idea of disappointment and dismissal. I feel as though in the modern ageit is now considered ‘rare’ ...

Does having a glamorous life lead to your ultimate downfall?

28Jan

By Evelyn Fernandez-JarvisNo Comments

Lifestyle

Does having a glamorous life lead to your ultimate downfall?

By Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis, Senior Lifestyle Editor Is there such a thing as being too lucky in life? Can a successful brand become the root cause of separation from the people we deem the closest too? I have been asking myself this question ever since the infamous Brooklyn Beckham decided to release his version of events to why he no longer wants a contactable relationship with his family. In my opinion, whilst trying to stay as neutral as possible, it made me think about the costs of fame and fortune. This one event on instagram had me and my housemates immediately glued to our phones, trying to put all the pieces together as if we were the detectives on a case of family estrangement. The Beckhams' lives are extremely hard to visualise as something that is a reality, as i...

Grief, Guilt, and the Fear of Forgetting

21Jan

By Ruby SaggersNo Comments

Lifestyle

Grief, Guilt, and the Fear of Forgetting

By Ruby Saggers, Editor-in-Chief The 19th July 2022 placed me in an eternal loop of grief. I lost my eldest brother, my absolute best friend, after he was missing for two days. Detectives informed us they had found a body at the bottom of our local reservoir: a short period of distress was met with sudden grief and everything fell apart. Since that day, it hasn’t stopped; the bad news just keeps on coming. I lost two beloved cousins, my grandparents passed three months apart, and my father has been battling a brain tumour longer than I’ve been alive. Last September, we discovered he has a second tumour growing on his brain. Some days, he has trouble remembering who we are. Now, after all this, all I feel is guilt. I haven’t truly been able to grieve the loss of my bro...

17Dec

By Lily GregoryNo Comments

Lifestyle

Moving on from University

Lily Gregory, Senior Agony Aunt University is supposedly one of the most amazing periods of your life. Graduates only ever sing songs of praise about their time at university. But nobody really tells you what’s next. Sure, they’ll give you advice and tell you that the job market will be okay. But that doesn’t compare to what you or I might experience. As someone who graduated over the summer of 2025, I wanted to see how people have moved on from university, and what has changed for them since graduation. I spoke to a couple friends who graduated alongside me in August 2025. James studied Maths, Sophie studied English and Creative Writing, and Ashleigh and I studied Classical Studies. No story is the same, and I hope this can help you see that anything is possible once you move...