New Year Update – Review of 2020

Well, 2020 is finally over. As predicted, the current situation hasn’t magically improved with the turn of the new year, like people were hoping. While it might not be the best of starts of 2021, with the UK going into yet another, national lockdown, it can’t possibly get any worse than last year, right? However, as it is the new year, I thought I’d take a quick look back at 2020, looking at some of the highlights of the year for me and also give an update on the blog. Let’s get started.

The biggest thing to happen, as well as my proudest achievement, is somehow getting through and finishing my History degree at Bournemouth University. My final year was a weird one, where it was incredible, rewarding, very stressful and full of unforeseen situations. Let’s start with the bad. There were various lecturer strikes which luckily, didn’t impede my studies too much, since I didn’t have many taught modules in my final year. However, it did lead to the already limited contact time of a final year history degree, to be cut down. Then there’s the elephant in the room, the pandemic. When the UK went into its first national lockdown, this caused most of the population, not just students, to adapt to new scenarios. Everything was moved online for university, adding a lot of uncertainty to the whole situation. For someone that has pretty bad anxiety, this wasn’t ideal. With my dissertation, graduate project and other module needing a lot of attention, I was pretty much glued to the desk in my room for the next 3 months. While it was tough, I know it could have been far worse, and my lecturers were incredible and always so supportive and responsive when I contacted them for help.

Despite all this and the stress, I still thoroughly enjoyed my final year and it ended up being my best. I loved my optional units, particularly one called History and Political Struggle: International Perspectives Through Film. It was such a fascinating topic and the skills learnt really came in handy for my dissertation. The Graduate Project, where we were split into groups and had to work with an outside organisation to plan, create and present a project, was incredibly rewarding. But, my proudest piece of work has to be my dissertation. The topic I ended up doing, was something that I had conceptualised in my first year, becoming clearer at the start of my second. The title was ‘Attitudes Towards Homosexuality in Britain Through the Analysis of Film and Television, 1957-1980.’ This was such an important topic to look at (for reasons both personal and general) and bring more focus on, since not much work had previously been done in the field. I put so much hard work into it, hundreds of hours of research, drafting chapters, rewriting and editing. I ended up getting a first for it – 76% to be exact – and I couldn’t be happier. All of my assignments in the final year received a first, which really surprised me and so I ended up receiving a First Class Honours Degree.

In terms of my blog, it took a bit of a backseat for the majority of the year, as I wanted to put most of my focus into uni work. Despite having less posts than the previous year, I ended up having more views, with my Professor Layton Ranked List reaching over 1000 views. While I may have not posted as much on the blog, I was still playing and completing many games, with my Game of the Year being Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I was also incredibly lucky enough to grab a PS5 at launch, having been sat on Amazon refreshing the page every 30 seconds for like an hour and a half, waiting for them to go live. I’m still surprised I could secure one. There have been so many great games to have released in 2020, so I thought I’d quickly list some highlights. Animal Crossing pretty much saved a lot of people and become a global phenomenon, coming out at the perfect time to help people relax, escape and build up their own island. Ori and the Will of the Wisps was a masterpiece that I cannot recommend enough. Astro’s Playroom was a complete surprise that had me smiling the entire time. Tell Me Why is an important game for LGBTQ+ representation, that tells an emotional story about family. There are so many more I’d like to talk about, but I will save it for my Top Ten Games of the Year post, which will likely come out sometime in March, as I’d like to finish a couple more of the big games before making the list.

It was a shame that I didn’t post as much last year, I’ve been getting very organised again and started to post more frequently. I really want to post far more on the blog and also try new types of posts. I started doing a ‘tips for beginners’ article, so I am thinking of doing more of that in the future. I have also wanted to try my hand at creating videos, like reviews on YouTube to gain more skills, while also branching out more and getting comfortable doing voice-overs. It’s something I’ve thought about for a couple years, but haven’t really had the chance to try. Maybe this year will be the time, especially as I do have more time now, since I’m no longer at uni and only working part-time until something else comes along, when the world returns to some semblance of normality.

Anyways, that was my 2020 review and I hope you enjoyed the read. What were some of your best parts of 2020 and are there any goals for the new year? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear. Stay safe everyone and I hope you have a great rest of the week.

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