It's September and the start of the new academic year, but it occurred to me that I hadn't yet wrapped up the old one. I intended to do this post at the end of the year, around June, however what with one thing and another I was incredibly busy throughout the whole summer - but I still wanted to keep some sort of record of my university experience that I can look back on so here we are! I did a similar thing last year, you can see my review of my first year here. I've decided to divide it up into three sections again: the city, the course and accommodation. Get ready because this is going to be another long one...

As a second year, I lived in a student house which meant I saw much more of the city than I had in first year when I lived in college and attended lectures a mere 10 minute walk away. It was great to experience more of the (admittedly tiny) city of Durham, and even venture into the outskirts *gasp*. I also started volunteering at a local Scout group which was a really lovely way of getting involved with the local community and getting away from the university bubble for a couple of hours each week.

One of the main things that helped with this was figuring out the bus system, which I made extensive use of throughout the year. Before that I'd hardly ever taken buses, apart from my school bus, so it was a little bit daunting at first but once I got the hang of it and learnt all the routes and numbers I was able to travel around quite efficiently. For example, there wasn't a direct bus from my house to where I had lectures, but I soon worked out which two buses I would need to take and after a while realised that it can be quicker to change at a certain stop than to go via the bus station. My house was a solid 30 minute mostly uphill walk to lectures and 40 minutes to college, so it was definitely worth taking the bus, especially on wintry northern days!

The academic side of my university experience improved enormously this year thanks to the modules I took, which I had a fair amount of choice in. It's typical to be able to specialise in your second year with any course, but for me especially it was a relief not to have to take any physical geography which I absolutely hated in first year. My compulsory modules this year were 'Social Research' and 'Theories and Concepts in Contemporary Human Geography', and for the optional ones I chose 'Political Geography' and 'Social and Cultural Geography'. All in all I think I made some good choices because I enjoyed both of the optional modules and they covered some really interesting topics, like for instance geographies of disability and theories of nationalism. They also proved to be the modules in which I got my highest marks for essays and exams, far beyond anything I had achieved the previous year. While we're on the topic, I also managed to get one of my essays published which was pretty cool, even if it was just in an undergraduate journal - I had to present it at a conference which was stressful as I'm not great at public speaking but it was a great experience and I suppose now I can say I'm a published writer??

I also kept up my French module that I'd taken the previous year, although at the next level up. Again I think it was a good decision because it took the pressure off when it came to the dreaded term 2 where essay deadlines were concentrated, and meant I had one less exam to worry about (I did have an exam for French, two in fact, I just didn't worry about them!). Interestingly, though, it was the module I got the lowest mark in which I suppose is a testament to my improvement in modules relating to my actual degree.

Another course-related highlight was a 5-day research trip to Liverpool that I went on at the end of term 2. Even though our chosen topic was a bit weird (diversification of religious spaces, which meant a lot of hanging around in churches and cathedrals), the actual research was pretty successful and my group got some good data and ultimately made a decent project out of it. I really enjoyed the social side of the trip, as although it was fairly full-on and we were expected to dedicate the whole day to gathering data, in the evenings we did various activities and chatted and socialised with the academic staff which was surprisingly hilarious.

The other thing worth mentioning that's related to my course is my dissertation, which we had to start thinking about around December last year because the Geography department is ridiculously organised. Over the course of the rest of the academic year we had to submit various ideas and proposals, and I soon got mine down to the topic of European and national identity in the experience of European School students. I'm currently doing the fieldwork for it at my old school, which basically consists of interviewing groups of kids about their experiences. I'm enjoying it because I find the topic immensely interesting, but I can tell I'll be so relieved to hand this in come April!

Because I lived 'in college' in first year this year was my first living independently in a student house, which also meant the first time cooking for myself and generally being a responsible adult and sorting things out in the house when they went wrong. The house itself was gorgeous and modern, absolutely not the kind of think you'd expect from a student house but it was correspondingly pricey and quite far from lectures. I actually really enjoyed cooking for myself and not being constricted by college mealtimes, and although I hadn't been totally ignorant before I learned a lot about cooking and cleaning! It was also so nice to be able to collapse on the sofa in front of the TV in the evenings, and to share a shower and toilet with 2 other people instead of 14.

As I lived so far from college I didn't end up going back there very often, only really for formals and similar events. Although I really loved living in college as a fresher and it was a big part of my uni experience, I felt (and a lot of my friends agreed with me) that I'd sort of outgrown college and I was eager to move on to other things. Living out of college was was generally a good experience, despite some issues with my housemates, so although I had the option of moving back into college I'll be 'living out' again this year (albeit with different people and in a different house).

And that's a wrap! I think I've summed up the main points of my second year. If the contrast between my first and second year is anything to go by I hope third year is going to be even better, although being my final year it does mean that I have to start thinking about what I'm going to do after I graduate - at the moment I'm thinking of doing a masters, but I haven't planned any further ahead than that. Let's just get through third year first...

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