Degree completed, now it’s time to celebrate!

The alcohol will surely be flowing amongst my peers after a lot of hard work over the past few weeks.

They say that school days are the best days of your life. Whoever ‘they’ are, I assume, mustn’t have gone to university.

Or maybe they did, and their experience wasn’t anywhere near as good as mine. If that’s the case, then I can only sympathise with them.

But on Monday evening, I handed in the final piece of work of my three-year journalism course at undergraduate level to, effectively, bring to an end my undergraduate study.

It was definitely a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, I was bringing to end a semester, and an academic year’s worth, of hard work and long hours – a weight off my mind had been lifted.

Yet on the other there was a sudden realisation that this was it, those three years had come and gone so quickly even Usain Bolt would struggle to keep up with them.

It only feels like last month when my Mum and Dad dropped me off and left me with a roomful of stuff to unpack and organise and I was about to dive head-first into freshers – a week of meeting new people, consuming copious amounts of alcohol and partying every night to break myself into the rigours of student life.

All of a sudden it’s now just over two-and-a-half years later, and with one click of a mouse it has almost come to a close.

Almost.

See, there is still the small matter of final grades to be released, then graduation, but before even that, there’s some celebrating to be done.

I’m sure my classmates will all be doing the same in some form or another, but for me it’s a second visit to Italy in a month.

I'm looking forward to visiting Rome's famed Colosseum. Image credit: Diliff/Creative Commons 2.5

Last month, I headed off to Milan with my friends to celebrate the day itself, while this month a trip to Rome doubles up as both a birthday present and a way to bring to an end an amazing three years.

I'll then have a couple more nights out left in Manchester as well as the annual Parklife festival to look forward to before I hand my keys to my house in at the end of next month.

I've loved every minute of living here in Salford/Manchester, and I am certain that I will be back living here in the very near future.

Nights out are surely a highlight of most British students' university experience. Here I am with my friends in second year, crouching in the middle dressed as Jesus.

I've met some amazing people and created unforgettable memories along the way. I'll miss university life so much, but I'll always be able to recall all of the good times from the past 36 months and that is priceless.

Whether any of my fellow students off my course actually read my blog, I’m not sure. But I’d like to wish them all the best for their results and their future, and hope that they enjoy their own celebrations.

Cheers!