Starting University has been one hell of a journey, and it all started off with the infamous Freshers' Week. The delightful sensory overload and confusion of that which is Freshers' week is a cocktail of both somewhat terrifying and incredibly mesmerising. Walking through the massive crowds forming absolutely everywhere, you can’t really help but feel a sense of excitement for the upcoming year, and at the same time a reassuring sense of accomplishment and relief. After all, you’ve made it! This is it, the first chapter to starting along the path of your career; the stepping stone to becoming who and what you want to be. Now, I know there may be many doubts and clarifications needed along the way, possibly even course changes, however I think that is part of the journey in itself. We learn from our mistakes and mishaps and strive to become better and find the source of what drives us through it. On another completely opposing note, did I mention freebies? Everybody loves free stuff, I mean seriously. I genuinely have enough stationery to last me the entire academic year, just from that one week. Don’t think they skimp out either and get those barely assembled pens that practically deteriorate after writing a page of notes. Regardless of how realistically useful said objects are, you can’t help but start to accumulate an insane amount of miscellaneous stationary, pamphlets and application sheets as you stroll through the multicoloured rows of countless stands. To which point you’re left with with more stuff than you can physically squash inside your now seemingly undersized handbags or backpacks. Another aspect which I thoroughly enjoyed and that caught my attention instantly, was the vast amount of interesting associations, debates and activities available, of which I signed up with all of them. Honestly, it was ridiculous amounts, I think I may have had a tiny lapse of sanity and imagined that I could somehow suddenly conjure free time at a whim. However, that being said, I was absolutely dead set on making University more than just a scholastic year, but an experience too; one that would hopefully reside with me for many moons to come. and to joyfully recount my shenanigans on drunken nights out. Now that the chaos of the first week is over, and the panic of not being able to navigate through this cruel maze we call our University layout has subsided, things are finally starting to settle into place. It is so fantastically reassuring to finally start to comprehend the inner workings of University and the dreaded timetable. The pressure and confusion has seemed to have calmed down, as I truly hope it has for all of you, and what a relief. That isn't to say that there haven't been recently uncovered annoyances emerging and replacing their forerunners, after all we wouldn’t want things to be too easy! Let’s not be ridiculous. The thing that comes to mind instantly, is that unfortunately in some of my lectures, there are more students than there are chairs. In my case, we already are a rather large class, however once that number is added with additional courses for certain lectures, we become an extraordinary amount of people. Regardless of the amount of classes joined together, this does not change the pre - determined amount of seats available in the lecture hall, which is what leads to the Hunger Games-esque moment of storming through your fellow classmates, and proceeding to half-sit on them in hopes of something sinking in that lecture. This is especially so, if you so happen to be running a little late due to the notorious buses and/or traffic, or in my case my, as I will wholeheartedly admit, just who I am as a person. Now that I’ve taken a good chunk of your time with my incessant ramblings, I would love to know your outlook and perspective of your experience as a Fresher! Or even ass a returning student, hell I’m not prejudiced! Lauren Polkey
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It's no secret that students in Malta aren't taken as seriously as people who make a living. This is true in many spheres, for example, when it comes to the job market, many consider students to be nothing more than cheap summer labour. When it comes to political issues, both parties are congratulated when they promote reform or change in the education sector, but students themselves are rarely listened to when it comes to political issues. I remember this being illustrated perfectly when a Maltese politician was in Ukraine a few years ago, and when asked about the riots in the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), described the violence as a mere 'student protest' in an attempt to downplay the situation - a situation which turned into one of the bloodiest conflicts fought on european soil in living memory. I have no definitive proof as to why this is the case. It's most certainly not just a local phenomenon, generally speaking, wherever you go, students tend to be seen as people who just don’t know enough to be relevant yet, which is funny, considering that we spend most of our time learning. However, a big part of this lack of social relevance is due to the fact that we do not challenge these ideas when they are presented to us, but rather accept them as being a part of reality. When one is offered an illegally small amount of money off the books in exchange for waiting tables, stacking deckchairs or washing dishes for 6-9 hour shifts, one should always either fight for a legal amount of money if nothing else, or search for better prospects which don't involve daylight robbery. If one is told that one's voice counts for nothing, because one is not 'old' enough or 'smart' enough to 'know' what a situation is really like, do not express anger or frustration, as this simply proves the point of those who say such things; that we are too impetuous or naive to assess a situation correctly and with wisdom. As a student body, in order to achieve greater relevance and have our voices heard, we need to rethink our own position. We are currently divided, in more ways than one. Arts vs. Sciences, Social sciences vs. Natural sciences, Organisations vs. other Organisations. While a healthy amount of competition can be beneficial, it is all too often that i see students bicker over petty differences. We need to make it clear that although anyone may find it easy to dismiss what a single student has to say, it is much. much harder to ignore the voice of a thousands' strong student body. Gavin Borg
“God is dead!” exclaimed Zarathustra, “And we killed him!” Perhaps one of the most misinterpreted phrases ever, penned by Frederick Nietzsche, describe the ranting of a madman before elite members of German society. What is often left out in retellings of this fictional anecdote is that the elites were not scandalized by Zarathustra’s words. Rather, they laughed and mocked him for being amazed by the obvious. Zarathustra's raving was, of course, figurative – a metaphor for the belief in God having been completely, or almost completely, phased out in contemporary German society. But Nietzsche’s message – the message which has kept philosophers studying these words to this very day – was not that this death had occurred, but that it was a tragedy. And it is in the tone, not the text, that the message truly lies. Let us delve deeper into the details about speech before going on any further. When a person speaks to another, it is very rarely to merely convey information. Unless in a formal schooling setting, one person divulges information to entertain, enquire, amaze, share, console, seek advice- a myriad of reasons and each one carrying an important and special pearl: intention. In fact, one could say this is true of all human communication, not just speech. How we dress, write, play, sing and so forth bears with it a mark of intention – to impress, to entertain, to dominate et cetera. Now how does this simple observation concerning communication connect with Zarathustra’s words? To see that we must make one further observation, this time about intention, and it is simply this: one cannot understand an intention without understanding what the intender values. For example, if a fox creeps up behind a rabbit, its intention is obvious – foxes value eating rabbits. However, if the same fox behaved the same way to a kettle, we would be rather perplexed – foxes don't value kettles. In fact, our first response might very well be to say the fox is confusing the kettle for a rabbit! The very same way as this we decipher each other's intentions: Jehovah’s witnesses knocking on doors, men buying drinks for women, a salesman loitering by the door. Every action has its intention deciphered using what we imagine the person values as our decryption key. Back when God was alive, what was valued was much more uniform. Virtues were set in stone and, by extension, values were also somewhat stable. Not everyone was equally religious or had the same religious interpretations, but at least there was a common yardstick for measurement. This is the tragedy which torments Zarathustra - the lack of a hierarchy of values. On the contrary to Zarathustra's desperation, Nietzsche and several philosophers and writers after him revel in the radical freedom given to them by this ubiquitous absurdity they see in human life. There are, however, pitfalls to this freedom. Firstly, let us bring to bear on the argument our earlier observations about communication. With no standard yardstick for what is or is not valuable, communicating becomes many times more complex. For example, in a community very devotedly Catholic, a stranger lending a helping hand is very likely to be interpreted as being a Good Samaritan- we imagine that he values helping others, and so we conclude his intention is to help. But take away the Catholic context and that same stranger lending a helping hand may be several things- a con artist, a man expecting something in return, a man looking for praise, a predator who's found easy prey, and so on and so forth. It is a burden on both parties- on us to understand his intentions, and on him to be understood. And here is where things take an interesting turn: in society's efforts to be understood without any fixed measure for value, it has turned to popularity as its yardstick. How popular a thing is, has been transformed into how valuable a thing is, simply because that is the easiest solution to us having ourselves understood. If Susan deeply values stamp collecting, but no one else really cares, the extent and variety of her very impressive stamp collection is not recognized by those around her, and so she is not understood as a successful stamp collector. However, if people commonly value the vitality, strength and sheen of hair, then Susan must invest more time into her hair to be understood as successful, even if she herself doesn't care much about hair. Now of course, this has always been this problem when it comes to hobbies- there has never been a common "law" for what people enjoy. But with the death of God, this problem began presenting itself in the ethical domain as well, and by extension into more or less every domain in life. Right and wrong had dissolved and with them so did values and virtues. Being an honest and hard work no longer means anything if honesty and hard work are disregarded. So people moved away from acting for the sake of virtues and started acting for the sake of popularity. So truth devolved into rhetoric, news devolved into fear mongering and journalism devolved into clickbait (hence the title of this article) and needless to say money, the universal measure of demand, became a cornerstone of how we define ourselves. Whereas in a world where generosity is valued, a poor man may easily be very successful by virtue of having given everything away, in a world where value is undefined, a poor man cannot possible be successful because he doesn't have money- the most popular commodity. And the most bitter point of this tragedy? Those of us who do pursue the path of popularity have their own private ways of valuing the world around them, which they betray because they know it won't be understood. Like Susan who abandons her stamps for her hair, so many of us abandon the lives we want to have in favour of the lives others can appreciate. Now the tone above may be fatalistic, but this isn't an inescapable faith. Like Nietzsche and the philosophers who followed him, we must embrace the lack of common value and not try to fill the void its left behind with popularity. Once we accept that there are no common grounds for value, we also accept that other people are never going to truly understand us (except the close few who value life in the same way we do). And here follows a great liberation: freedom from the scrutiny of others, freedom from the need to make sense to them. If being understood is so dismally impossible, why bother? We are free to embrace who we are despite what others may think. And if they knew any better, they would be perfectly at peace with the fact that there are people they cannot understand and harmony can be found in spite of a lack of common grounds. To end on a (very) positive note, our laments about Zarathustra's "tragedy" only leads us to see how truly free we are to pursue our own lives in spite of the great many differences present in any society. Jonathan Ebejer
We're quite lucky as Maltese students for many reasons, not only is our university free, but many extra curricular activities and events are planned weekly during the scholastic year, however, although there is alot of praise to give, we cannot ignore certain things which prove to be a source of real stress for any students. Something which almost all will agree with is the fact that the rate at which examination results are published, especially in certain faculties, are notoriously long. This can prove quite stressful on students, even more so for those prone to a more nervous disposition. When compared to the waiting period for results of foreign universities, the University of Malta falls behind. One of the biggest steps our university has taken in recent years is the esims system for easier communication between students and lecturers, as well as to recieve results automatically as they are published. Maybe the university should take it a step further, possibly by having more exams carried out on the computers in the ict building, removing the need for pen and paper correction. All in all, I'm very happy and grateful to be a student here in Malta, I've learnt lessons and made friendships that are going to last me the rest of my life. All I'm saying is that some of those friendships were made so strong because of how many experiences of dread we shared together waiting for those exam results to come out' Gavin Borg
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