The My Warwick Life feature gives an insight into staff and students’ lives at Warwick, considering both their work and social life on campus. This week we hear from Sophie Potter, third year undergraduate student in Italian with International Studies.

After finishing my degree at Warwick, I’d like to…

set up two businesses in Italy; one organising weddings or being part of larger cultural events, the other renting out safe, quality accommodation to students taking part in exchange programmes.

On a typical day, you’ll find me...

running around like a headless chicken, trying to fit everything into my schedule. Outside of my degree I’m the President of the World@Warwick society, a Student Caller, a volunteer at the Transnational Resources Centre, a participant in the Warwick Undergraduate Skills Programme and the Warwick Leadership Scheme, and a student of French in the Language Centre. I've recently been awarded a bursary to undertake a research project in Italy over the summer as part of the Undergraduate Research Sholarship Scheme (URSS), so I'm also preparing for that. By day you will usually find me in the Humanities building, Curiositea, the Westwood calling room, the library, or the Sports Centre. In the evening I can be found at the Dirty Duck quiz, the Student Cinema, the Arts Centre, or just in bed with a good film.

I’m really glad I got involved with…

the Latin and Ballroom Dance Society in my first year. After years of awful PE teachers, it was great to develop a love for sport through an entertaining and very sociable activity. Probably more than anything else, I am grateful to be involved with World@Warwick because it distracts me from the post-Erasmus blues, led to a concrete decision about what I’d like to do after Warwick, and is where I have met a number of exceptional people, including my best friends.

I had a really useful meeting recently with…

the supervisors of my summer URSS research project. My project is based on oral narratives by women who migrated from southern to northern Italy between the 1950s and 1970s. My supervisors recently discovered the ‘Archivio della memoria’ and the ‘Fondazione Agnelli,’ in Italy, which should both have loads of useful primary sources for me to look at.

I recently attended an event where….

a lady from Student Careers and Skills directed me to Sarah Haywood, a Warwick alumnus with an extremely successful career in wedding planning. I plan to apply for a work shadowing experience with her.

I’m really enjoying working on…

being the newly-elected President of World@Warwick. Although I was on the executive committee last year, it has been really interesting to help all of the other members, who are new to both the society itself and to being on an executive committee, to adjust to their roles. It’s very exciting to collaborate with different staff members across the University and the SU, to be creative and to help shape the Warwick experience for hundreds of students both from the UK and abroad.

I recently learnt that…

Warwick will be offering a very robust bursary and scholarship programme to students from lower income households who pay £9,000 per year fees. Whilst I believe that higher education should be state and philanthropically-funded, it’s great that Warwick is going to ensure access to its degrees to the brightest students from traditionally non-university backgrounds, like my own.

I’ve only just realised that…

some bizarre and very ugly boulder-type structures have been put on the grass in front of the Arts Centre! I usually love the artwork around Warwick but I think these were a mistake.

The best thing about studying at Warwick is…

the immense amount of opportunities outside of a degree programme to develop your interests and to develop as a person. There is so much available to do that it can be hard to choose what to take part in.

If I could change one thing at the University, it would be…

dedicating a great deal more attention and funding to the University Counselling Service. It does excellent and very important work in limited and completely over-burdened conditions, which mean it has to put students in need on extremely long waiting lists. I'd also totally overhaul the menu in the Library Café and give more space to the Transnational Resources Centre.

I’m a regular at the Sports Centre for…

Legs, Bums & Tums!

I usually travel to campus by…

bike. It’s cheap, good for you, and the campus is really pretty. The only thing which would make my cycling life much easier would be the installation of better drainage and more covered cycle parking spaces. I’m always getting soaked.