Students – Page 3 of 11

12May

By Jessica WoodNo Comments

News, Opinion

Defining Class

Defining Class: is it about what you earn or how you act? By Jessica Wood Society is ordered; people, places and possessions are constantly being put into boxes. Have you ever seen a movie and not had the desire to place it into a genre? It is a human instinct to name and sort things, that’s why we have an entire literary category called nouns. But what effect is this having on how we view the people around us? Does it explain why I was once told by a ‘friend’ that they would “only be friends with someone who went to a boarding school”? What defines this elusive term ‘class’? Why am I considered to have a lower status in society than them, even though my household income might actually be higher? This made me think that status in society is much more than what lands in your ba...

12May

By Laura BloomfieldNo Comments

News, Opinion

Studytube: Helpful or Dangerous

By Laura Bloomfield In the last few years, StudyTube has boomed, with videos gaining thousands and thousands of views. However, it’s worth wondering whether StudyTube advertises unhealthy study habits which viewers may feel they have to copy in order to achieve certain grades. The ‘Study with Me’ videos are some of the most potentially damaging videos I’ve seen on YouTube. Content creators post up to 12 hour study sessions. This has the possibility of making students feel like they need to study for equally long to achieve the same grades as these StudyTubers, which is not the case. These long study stints aren’t always healthy. We need breaks. On the flip side, these videos do have the benefit of making viewers feel like they have a study companion which can motivate people to cont...

12May

By Hannah ArmourNo Comments

News, Opinion

Strategic Schooling

It was the first day of sixth form and in they came, an influx of kids from all of the surrounding private schools. One, an all girls school, was only across the street from ours. They arrived in their pre-made cliques, ready to learn and ready to get into Oxbridge. Since acceptance rates are higher for state schools, their parents had moved them to us. Their movement was strategic. To the parents, it was simply a stepping stone. For their children, it was two years of their life. Now, don’t get me wrong, my state school might as well have been a private one. Sure, we didn’t have the one-on-one attention private schools do but we had some fabulous teachers. I’m tempted to say the best in the country. Situated slightly outside the city centre of Oxford, we all had some connection ...

12May

By Bridget OSullivanNo Comments

Digital Copies

Issue Four: Class

https://issuu.com/orbital-royalholloway/docs/job804349

No Longer Standing: The Monumental Message in What Remains

31Mar

By Sofia BajerovaNo Comments

News, Opinion

No Longer Standing: The Monumental Message in What Remains

In the early hours of the 23rd of December 2021, Hong Kong University’s Pillar of Shame statue was removed from the centre of campus. It has stood there at the University of Hong Kong since 1997 and represented the numerous lives lost in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, one of the most delicate topics in Chinese politics. Recently replaced with a new seating area, no remnants of the statue remain onsite. The image of the orange twisted bodies imprinted only in memory. The Tiananmen Square Massacre has largely been erased from history in Mainland China and Hong Kong is now following suit. The Pillar of Shame stood as a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, highlighting the difference of freedoms between Hong Kong and the Mainland, a gap that is being gradually clos...

Student Union Elections: Communication, Collaboration, and Joyful Surprise!

29Mar

By Madelaine GrayNo Comments

Elections, Features, News

Student Union Elections: Communication, Collaboration, and Joyful Surprise!

On Wednesday the Sixteenth of March, Orbital Magazine attended the SU Election results night to interview some of the lucky elected officers, including NUS Delegates, School Reps, and the 2022/23 Sabbatical Officer team. NUS Delegates – Maia Jarvis, Ananya Krishna Madelaine: Well, congrats to both of you! First off, I’d like to ask what your main priority is going into the NUS conference? Maia: So, I actually submitted a proposal to the NUS National Conference, which is about making education more accessible. So, making sure there’s flexible online learning. I’ll be pushing that agenda and making sure that’s on the national stage for education, because I want to make sure Holloway student concerns are on the national stage. Madelaine: What about you, Ananya? Ananya: I t...

21Mar

By Accalia SmithNo Comments

Features, News, Opinion

One More UCU Strike…

How effective is the Strike action in creating the change it seeks? An Interview with James Smith The end of March will see the disappearance of professors from classrooms once again. Not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of industrial strike action from the UCU (University and College Union). As a third-year student my university experience has been impacted by both the strikes and COVID resulting in an unexpected minimal amount of time spent on campus. In my first year there were extensive strikes which some students joined in on. Then COVID struck in March, disrupting the entirety of that year. Now, we are partly back to campus with both covid and strikes interrupting simultaneously. Professor James Smith, the UCU representative within the English department here at...

The Rise in Spiking (and Not Just as We Know it)

28Feb

By Beth McCowenNo Comments

News

The Rise in Spiking (and Not Just as We Know it)

What is Spiking? Drinks being spiked on nights out has been an issue for years. According to Better Health, drink spiking is putting alcohol or drugs into somebody’s drink without their knowledge or consent. It is illegal and is often related to other crimes like robbery and sexual assault. As women, we instinctively cover our drinks, never leave them out of our sight, don’t take drinks from strangers, and take every other precaution possible to keep ourselves and our friends safe. In late 2021, there was a frightening development in spiking. People are now being spiked not through drinks, but through injections. Incidents have mainly been reported in Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Edinburgh. This type of spiking carries additional risks because dirty needles can carry infections ...

6Feb

By Maddy PopeNo Comments

Creative Writing

A Future Nearby

We met in a riot. We stood at the centre of the universe bathed in colours that sang as we sang and fought as we fought. We were proud and wild and angry, at such a young age We had so much to feel And we felt so much. I noticed your fierceness. How your pink hair was held up by the honey sun Your green eyes glared at a world which closed its eyes when we got hurt for Being. We marched for the boy in hospital and for the boy who sat beside him. You brandished your sign to the sky and to God and it asked ‘how can you hate love?’ It was a carnival of pain and beauty. We held hands in the crowd like children Because we were children really. At twenty we had just introduced ourselves...

6Feb

By Rhea PatelNo Comments

Creative Writing

Touch and go

A sunset is ever-changing, Every minute of it revealing a new face, a new colour, a new sight. Oranges, pinks, and reds colour the sky, Merging to create a new painting every evening. Similarly, how sunsets are constantly altering, So are the people in our life. Every stage of our life contains different people compared with the last, It’s hard to understand that everyone isn’t going to stay. People are always passing by. But that’s okay, Because often through these short encounters with people we learn more about ourselves and we learn new lessons. And perhaps that is their only purpose in our life, The sun sets. And when the sun sets, The stars appear. They are now the light, the colours, and the new sight, But the thing is with stars is t...