HALLS: Issue II

all interests and areas of the college, what
advice would you give to first years to get the
most out of their Trinity experience?
A: Well I have advice especially for first
years, because my first year was not a great
one. I wasn’t really engaged in my course; I
wasn’t on any committees, I wasn’t really involved,
in fact I was very close to dropping
out a lot of the time (as I think a lot of people
are at some point in first year). I think my
real advice would be to remember that most
of us are coming from a background of
school, where everything is quite regimented
and organised for you; you know you go to
your lessons and you go to your football
training or whatever you’re into, but in college
you really need to be the one to take the
initiative yourself. So I think my main piece
of advice would be to actively go and seek
out something you have never done before,
and be open to it. You might be a champion
knitter, and you wouldn’t know because you
have never done it before, the same could be
said with rock climbing, or you could go and
do Jailbreak with VDP. You can try things
here that you end up loving which you would
never have imagined would be something
you would do. I think it’s really important to
give that stuff its space, because yeah you’re
doing your degree and you will learn a lot
doing that, but I learnt exponentially more
outside my degree than I did in it. And being
involved in these societies and extra stuff has
definitely affected my interests and where I
want to go in life much more than my degree
did. I actually got a great piece of advice from
my local GP before I came here, where he
said ‘go to university, but let the university
go through you’. I think that’s really affected
my route and really made me go and push
my boundaries to do things I otherwise
wouldn’t have.
Q: As the elections for the new sabbatical
officers are drawing nearer, surely you’re reflecting
on your own experience as President.
What have you found the most fulfilling
parts of the job?
A: There are a lot of things I found very fulfilling,
but also a lot of things I found very
difficult. Very very difficult. The main thing
that I found really good was dealing with the
group of part-time officers in the Union who
all have different briefs (like Environmentalism
or LGBT or Mature students, the list goes
on) and who are all full-time students. We
meet once every two weeks or so and hear all
these amazing plans that these students have
to support and improve the lives of everybody,
and it is just amazing. To be able to
facilitate that and help them jump over the
hurdles that, as full-time students, they
might struggle with, is really really brilliant
to do. For example, Green Week which is
coming up and will have just happened by
the time this interview is published, is the
brainchild of Simon (the Environmental
officer); we support and facilitate his plans
but it’s his vision and idea of what will help
that’s being implemented, and it’s brilliant to
see. I also find the Repeal campaign really
fulfilling. It’s an interesting one because it’s
maybe been a more political year than we
have had in a while as a Union, and people
forget that there are a lot of other things that
we do as well. But, the Repeal campaign has
been the most positive, powerful thing that
I’ve ever been involved in, and its bringing
people from all walks of college life together
in pursuit of this goal. Now, obviously not
everyone is in agreement with the campaign,
but that’s always going to happen - you’re
never going to have a situation where everyone
is in agreement - ever - but that campaign
has been really fulfilling for me; I’ve
really enjoyed it.
Q: Speaking of not everyone being in agreement,
there is much talk across university
campuses both nationally and internationally
around the topic of free speech, and there are
suggestions that people with views against
the status quo on prominent issues, for example
on Repeal, feel that their opinion cannot
be openly expressed. Do you view this as
an issue, and how do you think this attitude,