Student competition winners announced

Students were asked to share the most memorable moment in their student journey. The competition was open to all students in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology.

Competition theme

The social media based competition celebrated the launch of the School’s new student journey videos.

Asked about their most memorable moments, entrants talked about their experience in lectures, getting involved in student societies as an exchange student and how a last minute change of heart turned out to be the best decision.

Winners

The School congratulates the two winning students, selected by our School EUSA representative, who were each awarded with an Amazon voucher for their imaginative entries.

• Rachel Cook, third year MA History student
• Tyler Mackie, MSc in Osteoarchaeology

Well done to both Rachel and Tyler.

Competition entries

There could only be two winners, however the entries received were all of a high standard.

My most memorable moment was during a Frontier in American history seminar in which Dr Frank Cogliano quoted an Eagles song (hotel California) to make us understand a confusing point in the frontier... That is when I realised my uni had the coolest lecturers ever (and that the Eagles songs were a reasonable revision aid)!

I remember going to my first student meeting with my personal tutor, a lecturer in Scandinavian Studies. Books of Viking studies and Danish scribbles were around his desk, and as I sat there, then as a student of Linguistics, wondering what to do as an outside topic. "Maybe I could do Arabic?" I asked. He looked at me with a half-smile, told me about the difficulty and competitiveness but sighed and trawled through the website to sign me up. It was then when I saw 'Archaeology' listed, and I was sent back through memory lane. I remembered digging up my back garden, finding coal. I remembered proudly saying in primary school that I wanted to be an archaeologist. I remembered all those documentaries on Ancient Egypt, Time Team and human origins. It was then I knew exactly what I should do. "Wait, can I do archaeology?!" "Certainly!" My tutor said, grinning. Turns out he had a soft spot for archaeology too. I sometimes wonder if I wasn't reminded of my past, that if I didn't see Archaeology listed I would have never taken Archaeology or have ended up as a graduate of Archaeology. But from a whimsy, change of the heart, I made the best decision of my life following my childhood dream of doing archaeology, and I'm still going as a postgraduate Osteoarchaeologist today!

My most memorable moment so far has been in Social History 1.1 during a lecture by Adam Fox. In the middle of a serious lecture, he suddenly asked if we wanted to hear his Tommy Cooper impression, which was swiftly followed by one of the best impressions I've ever seen. He makes my morning every lecture.

My most memorable moment here in Edinburgh has been performing with the Savoy Opera Group - first with the hundred-year-old comic opera that is the Mikado and then a foray into Cold War sporting politics with Chess, all interspersed with fun facts about the Byzantine Empire and Northern Irish politics from my wonderful castmates. It's made my year abroad a crazy amazing time. Sorry, not so historical! I do like my classes as well.