Students – Page 2 of 14

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...

The Year of Reading: A Concerning Decline in Reading Rates amongst Youths

9Feb

By Ruby SaggersNo Comments

Literature, News

The Year of Reading: A Concerning Decline in Reading Rates amongst Youths

Ruby Saggers, Editor-in-Chief January 1st officially marked the start of ‘The Year of Reading’, an initiative introduced by the Department of Education and the National Literacy Trust. This is a campaign supported by an array of sponsors, and delivered by a group of literacy sector charities with hopes of making reading pleasurable, accessible, and a hobby to introduce regardless of age or circumstance. The National Literacy Trust found that in just two decades there has been a 36% drop in eight to eighteen year olds reading in their spare time. Queen Camilla issued a statement in regards to the fifth anniversary of The Queen’s Reading Room, in which she stated: “Reading truly changes how we perceive, how we think and how we connect.” In light of this, I conducted an i...

Good Villager/Bad Villager: People Pleasing and In(ter)dependence at University

28Jan

By Rhian KilleNo Comments

Opinion

Good Villager/Bad Villager: People Pleasing and In(ter)dependence at University

By Rhian Kille, Associate Opinion Editor ‘I saw that at the core of me, where something real and solid should be, sat a mirror, reflecting whatever I thought others wanted to see.’ – Moya Sarner, ‘Are you a people pleaser? It’s time to find out what you really want’, The Guardian (2025) As is true of most people pleasers, I like to think that people are overall pretty pleased by my façade of inexhaustible niceness and inoffensive demeanour. I used to include myself as part of this group, but recently anger, bitterness, and resentment, the classic symptoms of late-stage people pleasing, have begun to develop. I used to think people pleasing only made me a better friend. It was, I thought, at worst a harmless personality quirk, a cute pathological impulse. Now I’m coming to see it as ...

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’ ...

23Jan

By Lily GregoryNo Comments

Opinion

Honestly, Thank you.

By Lily Gregory, Senior Agony Aunt The university has changed. You see, I did my undergraduate degree here at Royal Holloway and now I’m doing my masters degree. This is my fourth year here and honestly I’ve never seen the university quite like this.  I go out to society events during the evening, and the campus is still busy. People are skating, playing football, chatting, singing, and doing group study sessions. I was shocked. Throughout my undergraduate degree, campus was quiet and never had the energy that it does now. Be it day or night, the campus feels like a university campus rather than a place with academic buildings on it. Since Covid it has felt as though something is missing. Now, I see society events booming, with some having mo...

Breaking News: SU Board Approves the Ratification of Royal Holloway Israeli Society

14Jan

By Madeline SidgwickNo Comments

News

Breaking News: SU Board Approves the Ratification of Royal Holloway Israeli Society

By Madeline Sidgwick, Senior News Editor The Students' Union (SU) Board made the decision to overturn the Societies, Sports and Opportunities Executive (SSO) board members' decision to deny the ratification of Royal Holloway Israeli Society. Members of the SSO board are elected by students throughout the year. In a statement released at 11am today, Friends of Palestine Society stated “We demand that the SU Board revoke their decision to overturn the democratic and legitimate decision of the SSO, our elected representatives- immediately”. Israeli Society last night via Instagram stories stated, “Following an appeal the decision not to ratify the Israel Society has been overturned, subject to a few minor conditions. Fantastic news! RHUL will soon have an official Israeli Soc...

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...

Anxiety, Part 2….Where I am a full year later!

1Dec

By Evelyn Fernandez-JarvisNo Comments

Lifestyle

Anxiety, Part 2….Where I am a full year later!

By Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis, Associate Lifestyle Editor Movement is a fitting title for the period of September through to December. It seems that as the leaves are turning a deep red, we see this bout as a period to spend more time at home, but to also analyse ourselves. Put ourselves under the microscope, so to speak. What we find when under a self inspection can vary from degree to degree. Last year during this period these months of confinement felt suffocating, and my release of emotions came in the form of an article published last year in an issue called ‘Modernity’. Inside this article was a key to my locked up emotions; it encompassed the overwhelming feelings that I was grappling with in this returning year. Furthering this, entering second year I could not comprehend...

1Dec

By Isobel CarnochanNo Comments

Culture

Our Back To School Favourites

By Isobel Carnochan & Suhana Limbu, Senior and Associate Culture Editors With our first break of the year creeping closer and closer, deadlines looming and readings already stacking up, it's easy to forget just how recently we were all on summer break. It was not too long ago now that most of us began moving back to Egham (apologies to our dear commuting readers), and even more recently that the academic year started up once more. With this in mind, let Suhana and I take you through our pop culture favourites for back to school season… - Isobel Film and TV Suhana’s film of choice: Matilda (1996) A struggle that I find myself having during the back-to-school period is maintaining an undoubtable passion for my degree. Let’s f...