The Beginning of the End by Sara Morrison

With the end of a long relaxing summer after an even longer, stressful year full of studying and exams comes the start of open day season. It signals the beginning of a long trek through tough decisions, last minute extra curricular activities and the ruthless process of editing personal statements. It signifies the beginning of the end of our time at high school and this whole stage of life.

I found the run up to my first open day rather daunting. I didn’t feel old enough to be doing this – wasn’t it only yesterday that I started high school? There’s so much to think about too - where to go, what to do – but hey, it’s a day off school! In my house open days, like many things, need to be planned with military precision. They can be difficult to plan for most people but for us, we have to coordinate two sets of open days, one for me and one for my twin sister, and both for completely different subjects, modern languages for me and marine biology for Amy.

Picking out talks to go to turned out to be a very slippery slope. After I figured out which language talk to go to, I started looking at the other tours that were available. ‘Study abroad looks quite interesting and ooh, maybe I should go to the student life talk’ until I ended up on a bus to go and see accommodation that I had no intention of ever living in.

Aside from being swept up in all of the activities that are on offer, when you finally get to the open day, when you finally find the right place you just sink into it like you belong. It can take a few tries and sometimes you have to wait for a place to grow on you but other times just walking around campus is enough. You know you found the right place when you can imagine yourself there for four years.

For me, this place was Edinburgh. I have always had Edinburgh as my first choice in my mind so as the open day approached I grew a little apprehensive that it couldn’t possibly live up to my expectations. But, boy, was I wrong. It was everything I wanted and more, because it was sunny too! It made me feel a little wistful because I have an extra year to wait before uni than the rest of my peers but it made me so excited for when I do get there. And at the end of the day, that’s what open days are for – to show you a glimpse of your life in the not too distant future and give you something to look forward to.