Humans of Portsmouth - Charlie's Story

I feel pretty good. I got a couple of things in my mind on things that I need to be doing and working towards and it’s just making me a little nervous, but it’s ok. I think it’s because it’s new and I feel like new things can be a bit scary - it’s the kind of thing where you know you have the confidence to do it, but you have to find it first.

I came here to study in 2020, during the pandemic, which was a bit stressful. I actually wanted to wait a year because I was really scared about the pandemic getting a bit more serious and I did not want to leave my family. But because of Brexit and the implications for European students in terms of the fees, I had no choice but to come in 2020 if I wanted to study in the UK. So that's why I came here in 2020 to pursue my bachelors at Portsmouth!

I visited Portsmouth once before on a school trip when I was 15. We took a bus from the Czech Republic, which took like 20 hours to get here. When we arrived, they woke us up and told us we’re in England and I was like: oh, are we in London or something? And no, we were in Portsmouth and I just remember I really loved the sea. I am from a landlocked country, where we have no seas. I found the sea so nice and relaxing. When we went into the countryside of England, it was so dark and I was thinking: I could never live here. As a 15 year old, Portsmouth made an impression on me. I applied to different universities around the country but Portsmouth was my top choice because I wanted to live by the sea and the course for digital marketing looked really good. 

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I was in high school. I thought I wanted to do biology because I loved biology. But to study it further I needed good grades in physics and chemistry, which were not my strongest subjects. I soon realised it was just an interest rather than something I wanted to pursue as a career. I loved making videos and learning about things like culture and media. That's why I went into marketing. My cousin worked in marketing for this huge brand, Mondelez, and they make chocolates. She would always bring all these sweets and be like: oh yeah, I work in marketing. I thought, wow that looks pretty good and rewarding so I decided that I wanted to do that.

[Four years later, would you say you made the right choice for yourself?] I think so. I think about it a lot actually, especially when I go home. What would my life look like if I stayed? I would be a different person if I didn't come here; my experience made me who I am today and I'm really grateful for that, even though it was a bit hard and I miss my family a lot. I do think I made the right choice - I can always go back home, whereas in that situation four years ago, if I didn’t move here I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.

It is just me here but I’ve gotten used to it now. However, in my first year, it was very frustrating for me. My family didn’t really understand how difficult it was for me to come here on my own. I went to the same school for 8 years; same school, same routine, in my small hometown for a chunk of more than half of my life. Going from that to university is already a big step. And then if you put on top of that a different country, country and during a pandemic, it made things really difficult. And there was this pressure to stay strong because at the end of the day this was my choice and I wanted to do this and my parents also invested a lot of time and money to enable me to do this. I just had to sort of push through it but it was quite hard. 

[Unforgettable memory in Portsmouth] This was in my first year with a couple of friends. We wanted to go and have this typical student experience and we went to a party. It was really bad, we didn’t enjoy it. We were upset we didn’t enjoy it, but we didn’t let it ruin our night. It was late at night and we decided to stay up until sunrise and watch the sunrise. So we drank coffee to stay up, and then we went to the beach and watched the sunrise. It was the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen here in the UK. It was the first time I sort of felt that I belonged here in a way, and that I did make the right choice to come here.

[If you would describe yourself in three words, what would they be?]  I would definitely say curious, independent and kind. I think those are very big, like cornerstones of who I am. 

[What is your greatest achievement and proudest moment?] It's hard to say because the way achievements can be viewed is so subjective. For someone, an achievement might just be a regular thing. But I guess, finishing my master’s degree in the way that I did was one of my greatest achievements. I was juggling a lot of things at the same time. Towards the end, I was writing my dissertation, looking for a job, a place to live and working 2 part time jobs. It was a lot. A lot of things also depended on each other - I couldn’t get a job if I didn’t have a place to live but I needed a job to prove that I can pay rent. It was kind of messy. But, through a lot of my own work and the amazing people that I had around me and their support, I managed to do it and do it successfully. And I am really proud of that. 

Sometimes I feel like I sell myself short. Whereas, when someone says no, you should be proud of yourself for doing all these things makes me realise we need to recognise all the hard work we put into things. I feel like there's people like me that find it difficult to do that. Sometimes you just kind of get on with the next thing and the next thing and you don’t really give yourself that space to look back and actually give yourself credit for what you achieved. So, that’s something I am working on, it’s an area of improvement. There’s this quote that I think in my situation it fits so perfectly: “Wherever you go, there you are”. You will always be with yourself and you need to be able to be kind to yourself as well. Of course, work hard and work on yourself and try to improve. But it’s also really important to be comfortable in your skin, and be able to appreciate the  good things about you and the good qualities that you have. As someone who is not from here, I am so grateful that I feel like wherever I go in the world, I will always be able to adapt because I’ve done it once before and it sort of serves as proof for myself that I can do it. I have a twin sister and she doesn’t really travel because she is scared and she is unsure if she can do it. But I know she can because I could. 

[So you have a twin sister?] Yeah, but she is back home. We did everything together, and in school we were always together. But around puberty, we had a phase where we wanted to separate and we went to different highschools and we had a bit of a rough patch. But now, I do really miss her and it kind of makes me a bit sad thinking that if I was back home we would be closer. 

Being far away from my family was a struggle. Not linear but more like waves. When I came here, I wanted to be really independent and do things on my own. I missed my family a lot, especially in the beginning, but there was this point where I was working on myself and I was really happy to be independent. Now, it’s kind of going back to missing them. My parents are getting a bit older and I am missing a lot of milestones which is a bit tough. 

[Favourite childhood memory] When I was 6, me and my twin sister flew to America. My dad is American and he was in America at the time. My mom was a flight attendant and she arranged to fly us out to America for the first time! She worked on that flight. I remember this thought that I had while I was looking outside the window: oh my God, we’re in space!

Everything was dark and I could see the stars. I was like: what’s going on? When we arrived and I heard everyone speaking English, I didn’t know what was going on. I just couldn't comprehend the concept of a plane and flying across the ocean. 

[Did you think your mum took you to space?] Yeah. I don’t really remember this but my mum told me that we kept pressing the button that calls the flight attendants to your seat. My mum would see it on her monitor and she was like: I hope that’s not my kids. But it was always us, us, us, us and it was so fun!

I would say my mom [means the most to me]. I love all my family but I really admire my mum. I really, deeply admire her, and I could always count on her. My mum always kept me safe, and for kids growing up I think that's really important when moving abroad and stuff. 

[Tell me about a difficult time you've been through and what helped you get through it] I feel that this kind of applies to what we talked about before. That sort of coming into a new environment, but also being complicated by different external factors. I think that knowing it would eventually come to an end, helped me through it. I think that in difficult situations we tend to go into this sort of tunnel vision of different scenarios and what could go wrong. It's important to know that everything has an end - and that can be sad but also comforting. Life has its ups and downs. So you know that even though it might be a really, really big low, there will be an up. Knowing that internally, and pushing through can give a sense of hope that things will eventually get better. 

A global pandemic was really scary, and the fact that you didn’t know when it was going to end was the scariest bit about it. But it did end, because that's a rule of nature in a way - everything has a beginning and everything has an end. Like I said before, it’s scary but also comforting during those difficult times. Even now when I go through difficult situations, I have to remind myself that it won’t last forever. 

[Advice to people moving to a new country] One of the things that I haven’t mentioned, but it was a thing that I realised a bit later after moving here is that it can be a bit scary at the beginning to sort of branch out of your bubble. When I came here, it was easy to sort of clutch to what you know instead of stepping into the unknown. I was hanging out with all these Czech friends and I did everything with them and I didn’t really make an effort to branch out and get to meet people from different countries and cultures. So definitely, do not be afraid to branch out - it is so interesting to get to know people from different places and I really wish I started doing that sooner. Also, I would advise to not have a preconceived image of how your experience is supposed to go. I felt like I was comparing this fake scenario in my head to how things went and I thought I was not having the uni experience. Take control of your experience and do not compare it to what you had in your head or what you see on social media. It’s not helpful to compare your experiences with what others post on social media, because it might make you feel like you are doing something wrong, when you aren’t - you’re just doing what you want to do and don’t feel guilty about it.

[How do you feel about the future?] I am really looking forward to it, but also I'm a bit scared because it's going to be different and new. I don't really know what I want to do in the future. There's different options that I have  in my head. They're kind of circulating, but each of them has very big pros and cons. In September, my visa changes to settled status and I feel that is kind of the point where I can decide if I actually want to stay here or go somewhere else entirely different. Thanks to my dad, I have an American passport and I would really like to try to get an internship in the US for a few months because the marketing area has a lot of opportunities. But maybe I would like to go traveling for a bit. After finishing my degree, I had to figure out what to do really quickly and I didn’t really have the space to travel. 

I hate that there is this thing in me that is always thinking about what’s next. I constantly have to get better and do better and be better. I recently stopped doing that - I am young and have so much time career wise. I think it's OK to just not be sure what you want to do, especially at this age. It just feels like a checklist of expectations and like not being able to really breathe and actually. 

After I finished my undergrad, I wanted to do a masters but if I had the option between a job or studying, I would want the job. I did get a graduate job after finishing my undergrad, and I thought I would get the whole summer to just enjoy it! But the company called me and told me the position wasn’t available anymore due to their financial situation and that sort of contributed to my decision of doing a masters. It happened for a reason and it has led me to where I am now. I wouldn’t have met the people that I got really close to or all these things that followed. In Czech we say: everything bad is good for something. Even if something happens and it sucks, good things that you may not have thought about will come out of that.