‘Approve sign in request’ and four other things MMU students are sick of hearing

Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marc Antony, assignments and Chat GPT: Forbidden love is a tale as old as time. For the modern university student, the most relevant example of the star-crossed lovers dynamic is that of the polytechnic and the Russell Group.

Born to be together, but thrust apart by differing A-Level results, the Polytechnic and the Russell Group live under one mutual understanding: A loan is a loan, no matter where you attend.

My boyfriend is a Russell and I’m a polytechnic – The University of Manchester and MMU. We’re a bit like the Montagues and Capulets, except the Montagues wear Schoffels and the Capulets are yet to have a functioning library.

I’ve had a fair few “that is so MMU” remarks thrown my way over the course of our relationship, some deserved, some low-hanging fruit. Here are a few things the MMU student is tired of hearing – the brief was six but my polytechnic brain can’t comprehend a number that high.

1. ‘Approve sign-in request’

Why does my Outlook account require so much cyber security? Two factor authentication every time I want to refresh my email is a sickening joke of inconvenience. I can wholly vouch that anything of mine that is being protected under two sign-ins and an external verification is probably just scraping a pass grade and therefore does not need the safe guarding.

I recently ran into a first year flatmate and an awkward encounter was avoided with small talk – current events, the weather, the intense frustration cyber security brought. Next!

2. ‘Your library book is available to be picked up’

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It now takes approximately three days for an MMU student to take out a library book. If you’re fortunate enough to go to a university with a library, I’ll explain to you our predicament: You order in advance, and in three business days you’ll get the email of confirmation that you can go and pick up your book.

When hearing of the new order-in-advance system, my friend Sam compared it to that of a supermarket’s Click and Collect: “It’s like ASDA. Our library is like ASDA.”

3. ‘Quids in?’

No no no. Get that Factory flyer out of my face – my head is down, my hood is up, my earphones in and yet a flyer has still been thrust into my face outside of All Saints Park.

Please read the room, the park, the whatever – the mere mention of Factory makes even the veterans among us wince.

4. ‘That is so MMU’

Some things really are so MMU in the same way some things are so uni of. It just seems like there’s a level of disparity here. They have Allens and we, Poppolinos.

5. That the Union Food Hall is CLOSED

Is this purely an issue of my own? Is this just filler? Is this me crying out for a Caesar salad, skinny chips and a Diet Coke all for seven pounds? Yes, all three: I have spent a considerable amount of time in lectures frantically googling an explanation behind the Union’s closure, to no avail.

Please reach out via any medium if you have a date for the reopening, I am constantly craving  bargains of such high calibre. Thank you in advance. Skinny chips on me.