5 minutes with ... Riley Chapple
What are you up to these days?
These days I am balancing studying for an MA in digital media practice at the University of Winchester, with managing my freelance graphic design work on the side.
Favourite Uni memory
There are so many to choose from it’s nearly impossible! One that will always stick with me is my first class of my second year in rewriting and adapting, where our lecturer Andy gave us amazing examples as to what the ‘uncanny’ is. Every class had me in tears of laughter, and it became by far my favourite class of university ever. No doubt a close second however, is the bond the first ever group of professional writers had; we all waited for each other after every oral presentation, and had a giggle in every class as we all went through the modules given to us together. Everyone will always have a special place in my heart and always make me reflect positively on my professional modules.
Advice for new students
There are so many different things I could say: start reading early, don’t panic about the infamous dissertation, don’t be scared... some of it sounds so cliche but perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learnt from the creative writing family is don’t be afraid to be yourself and show your weaknesses. There have been so many times where I’ve been stressed, but everyone in the creative writing programme is like a second family. We are all there for each other, to help develop work, lean on one another for advice, and enjoy the roller coaster that is an undergraduate degree. Don’t worry about people not liking you, you can’t please everyone but as long as you’re comfortable with yourself then that’s the best thing anyone could ever ask of you. University is stressful, and if you need time to yourself, please take it! Just don’t be afraid to jump in and do it your way - btw...film nights in instead of going out are 100% okay! You’d be surprised how many people secretly prefer them!
Best thing about UoW
In Winchester you can always find inspiration, be it from walking through unexplored places, finding secret coffee shops or book stores, or just walking through campus as the seasons change. You may think at times ‘Hey it’s just a campus, I won’t miss this’ but you do. Winchester University has a really small main campus, and at times that can be a blessing and a curse, but by far it’s always helped me to feel inspired. Spending five hours in a coffee shop is a lot easier to do than you’d think, too!
Guilty pleasure
Okay so...my friends and housemates can back me up on this - everyone deals with stress differently. What does Riley do you ask? He....stress bakes. Yes, I can’t tell you how many cakes, brownies, cookies etc... that I’ve made throughout third year specifically. My friends loved it because who doesn’t love cake?!? But I’m sure waking up at 4am to bake a chocolate fudge cake has not helped my sweet tooth problem! If it’s not baking it’s going to the shops to buy several large Cadbury’s bars to snack on whilst working XD the best thing though is that you can walk it all off with the Winchester hills!