Humans of Portsmouth - Marija's Story

I’m from Croatia, and life wasn’t really easy. I was studying psychology, and I had to work a lot just to afford everything. Towards the end of my degree, I had four jobs, working anywhere between 50 to 70 hours a week. I remember coming home from one shift: I was a waitress at the time, and I had just finished a 16-hour shift in a pub with the most misogynistic, ridiculous manager ever. At the end of the night, he made me stay longer to pour drinks for his friends, and it was really uncomfortable. I walked home thinking: ‘Is this what my future is going to be? Just trying to survive?’

The economy in Croatia is really difficult, and I’m not from a well-off family. My life there would have been just that - trying to survive. So, I decided to look for a university outside of the country, somewhere where a degree could afford me a better life.

I saw an advertisement for the University of Portsmouth on Facebook, applied, and that was it. I did zero research, I just thought ‘if it’s meant to be, then it’ll be’. I told my mum only after receiving a conditional offer. My family and all my friends only found out a week before I moved. We had a farewell party, and it was a really beautiful end to one stage of life.

It was during COVID, so when I arrived, I had to spend two weeks in quarantine. Towards the end of it, I went to buy groceries. I was in a hotel in London, and that was the first time it really hit me: ‘I’m in a different country’. It was around 10PM, and suddenly, for the first time, I felt unsafe. I wasn’t in Croatia anymore, my friends and family weren’t close. I was completely on my own.

Figuring things out was… interesting. There were issues with opening a bank account, renting, and getting a phone number because I had just arrived and didn’t have any of the required documents. It felt like a chicken-and-egg situation: you needed an address to open a bank account, but to get an address, you had to prove you’d had a bank account for the last six months. Absurd, really.

[What is your greatest achievement?] I don’t actually think I have one, to be honest. Maybe I’m just too harsh on myself. I can see how some people might say that moving countries, working so many jobs, and paying for my tuition is an achievement, but to me it just feels like… life. Like something I had to do. I always feel like I could do more, especially in this role. I genuinely want to change the entire trajectory of my life. 

I come from a poor family, and for most of my life, we didn’t even have enough money for bread, we relied mostly on the kindness of the community. For me to come here, my entire community had to come together to lend me money. Some of them literally gave their last savings because they believed I could actually do something with my life. That’s a lot. Maybe it’s imposter syndrome, I don’t know. But when that many people sacrifice so much for you, you feel like you owe them something, like you have to justify their belief in you. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time and money for everyone involved. 

I did work on quite a few projects as the Elected Officer - like the new Course Rep system, Uncapped Resits, the University’s Mobile App, the 48-hour extension, to name a few, but it still doesn’t feel enough.

[Did you get involved with the Students’ Union during your time as a student?] I tried to. During my first year, I was desperately trying to find a job. I applied for one at the Union, but I failed the interview. I ended up becoming the President of a society, and later joined the Purple Army, where I got an opportunity to become a Groups’ Assistant. That’s when people started talking about elections. I remember we had to sign an agreement saying we wouldn’t run if we were working at the elections. At first, I thought it was completely delusional to even consider running. But I had this feeling that I needed to do it. I applied literally right before the deadline.

A lot of people ran that year, and I was so stressed. The campaign period lasted almost 3 weeks, and by the end of it, I thought I might have a heart attack. During the voting week, I was walking around all day long, talking to people. One of the days, it rained really heavily, and I ended up standing outside the library, completely drenched in a dress, with my tiny rainbow umbrella.

The year before, I saw someone campaigning, and I thought ‘That could never be me’. But after working at the Union, I started to see how things actually were. It wasn’t as intimidating as I thought. And there were problems I started to notice, things I wanted to fix. But more than anything, I had this deep feeling that wouldn’t go away, telling me that I at least had to try. So I followed it. And I won.

[Greatest struggle] During my first year in England the hardest thing was the language barrier. I had brilliant results in my TOEFL exam, so I assumed I’d be fine. But when I got here, I couldn’t understand anything. The only person I could actually understand was my flatmate - only because he was using his customer service voice with me. It was weird. I had to do an entire degree in a language I suddenly felt like I didn’t understand. Making friends was also difficult at first, probably because of the language barrier. 

Now, the biggest struggle is that I want to do so many things that I’m passionate about, but the days feel too short. The ideas, the things I want to change, everything keeps me awake at night. With the amount of work I do, burnout feels difficult to avoid. Time feels really limited, especially in this role. It feels like if I don’t do it now, it’ll be for nothing.

I also struggle with the fact that for many of the things I’ve worked on, I won’t be here to see the results. For example, when School reps actually become fully utilised, I won’t be here to see how it turns out. I won’t know if anything that I did as an Officer actually worked. If it actually made a meaningful change.

For me, it’s not about changing things just to say I’ve done it - it’s about the final result and whether it actually helped people in the way it was meant to.