How did you find university?

I am an exact contemporary of Chris Packham and likewise did a zoology degree. I found that I did not make any real friends with the people on my course, but I lived all three years in a traditional, catered, hall of residence, where I made a group of good friends numbering about half a dozen. This is the only time in my life that I had so many friends at the same time. My course was quite heavy on the organised taught time, with lectures, practical classes in labs and tutorials amounting to 24 hours a week. I also found that quite a challenge. I found that I could not gauge what lecturers wanted from me, I would put huge effort into something and get a 3rd or poor 2:2, or rush something at the last minute and get a 1st! Exams in huge halls with lots of other nervous people were very nerve-wracking and the anxiety that mounted in me before exams seriously affected my ability to revise effectively. We had a lot of quite smelly and grisly dissections, they were usually in the afternoon, so I would anaesthetise myself with beer at the students' union at lunchtime.

I had zero success with the opposite sex. I realise now that this was because I just could not read expressions and body language, so never recognised when I was being given a green light. In the absence of being able to recognise any interest from any young woman, I was too afraid of rejection, or of doing something inappropriate, that I never made any advances whatsoever.

I am an exact contemporary of Chris Packham and likewise did a zoology degree. I found that I did not make any real friends with the people on my course, but I lived all three years in a traditional, catered, hall of residence, where I made a group of good friends numbering about half a dozen. This is the only time in my life that I had so many friends at the same time. My course was quite heavy on the organised taught time, with lectures, practical classes in labs and tutorials amounting to 24 hours a week. I also found that quite a challenge. I found that I could not gauge what lecturers wanted from me, I would put huge effort into something and get a 3rd or poor 2:2, or rush something at the last minute and get a 1st! Exams in huge halls with lots of other nervous people were very nerve-wracking and the anxiety that mounted in me before exams seriously affected my ability to revise effectively. We had a lot of quite smelly and grisly dissections, they were usually in the afternoon, so I would anaesthetise myself with beer at the students' union at lunchtime.

I had zero success with the opposite sex. I realise now that this was because I just could not read expressions and body language, so never recognised when I was being given a green light. In the absence of being able to recognise any interest from any young woman, I was too afraid of rejection, or of doing something inappropriate, that I never made any advances whatsoever.

In the absence of being able to recognise any interest from any young woman, I was too afraid of rejection, or of doing something inappropriate, that I never made any advances whatsoever.

Do you have a partner now? Have you managed to have any success since uni out of interest.

Yes I definitely self-censor. I think raising awareness of sexual assault has made men terrified of approaching women, less it gets misread. Some of it is undoubtedly justified, but on the other hand I have no script off what's right/helpful and wats not helpful/harmful.