Associate Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin (UCD) and author of 2018 An Post Irish Book of the Year Notes to Self, Emilie Pine originally applied to Trinity to study history and politics. âThen, the night before the CAO applications closed, I went for a drink with my English teacherâ, she tells me over the phone, pausing for a split second before gently interjecting: âThat sounds a bit weird but he was gay â it was fun!â Chuckling now, she continues: âHe said, âyou know, you really love English, so I don’t understand why youâre applying to do history and politics?â.â To which Pine replied: âNo, I donât either.â
âSo, I got my change of mind form in hours before it closed and never looked back.â
Despite confessing that she âsort of fell in love with academiaâ as an undergraduate, Pine says that this love affair wasnât always smooth sailing. âI don’t think I really read very much in my first six months in Trinity because I was so overwhelmedâ, she explains. âYou go from reading one book for the whole year and suddenly you have to read a book every week.â It wasnât until reading Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson at Easter break of her first year that Pineâs faith was affirmed. âIâd never read anything like itâ, she says. âIt felt like a whole other world opened up.â Now, with hindsight on her side, Pine invites incoming freshers to simply take the time to feel overwhelmed before letting those feelings pass, saying that âeveryone feels like this at the startâ.
Pine notes that attending debates of the College Historical Society (the Hist) and Dublin University Philosophical Society (the Phil) in particular, made her fresher-self feel especially uncertain. âEveryone seemed really confident â and Iâm sure itâs different now because that was over 20 years ago â but it was mostly men and the girls were kind of standing around by the sideâ, she says. Casting her mind back, Pine remembers feeling as though âthey had all this powerâ and finding that âreally, really intimidatingâ.
The transition to university in Dublin also made Pine conscious of the specificity of her three-subject A-level examinations in England. Suddenly, she felt as though she âcouldnât hold [her] ownâ in broader discussions of history, geography or science. Similarly, in one of her first English tutorials, Pine vividly remembers being asked: âSo, how many lines are in a sonnet?â, only to be met with the cruel realisation that she didnât know âwhat a sonnet wasâ.
In light of this, Pineâs earliest days walking through Front Arch were tainted by an inner voice telling her âyou donât actually belong hereâ, coupled by âa feeling that it was going to get taken away from meâ, she recounts. She says that it was less the conditions of her chosen university, and more the turbulent teenage years which led her there â memories of which she candidly records in her award-winning essay collection Notes to Self â that gave rise to this sense of unbelonging.
Nevertheless, these feelings duly subsided when Pine was elected a Scholar at the end of her second year. From then on, she began to see her worth as a promising student within the institution, rather than a passionate bookworm who felt she was merely making pace by the skin of her teeth.
For Pine, respect was a huge driving force behind this change of heart. In school, her love of literature branded her âa nerdâ, âweirdoâ and meant that she was ânever picked for a team sportâ. University, meanwhile, was âa place, where it turns out, these are really good skillsâ. âIf you’re in a context that doesnât value or respect the skill, interests or talent you have, then you start feeling like you donât belongâ, Pine explains. âBut you feel at home when youâre with people who arenât necessarily like you â because everybody is different â but people who allow you to be yourself.â
After a chaotic few years of skiving off and being kicked out of school, studying for scholarship examinations provided Pine with âa sense of regularityâ, a thirst for progress and a firm introduction into the world of fine print that ânobody on the outside of academia knows exists reallyâ. She remembers enjoying sunny days vicariously through library windows and there being âa huge reward to thatâ. On the other hand, the successful academic â with hindsight â now ponders: âWould [I] have had way more fun in my third and fourth year had I not gotten schols? Not gotten serious so early?â
In a similar vein, even 20 years on, Pine sometimes catches herself daydreaming about the bright-eyed fresher who âalways wanted to be a writerâ and wishing she âhadn’t given up on thatâ in her 20s. âI thought I had to grow up or something, and follow a career pathâ, she says, while admitting that doing so has personally brought her immense fulfillment and joy. So, consciously running the risk of playing the patronising professional, Pine means to say that âeven if that dream is something private only to you, itâs really worth somethingâ. âI don’t regret a single step that I tookâ, she adds, pointing out that there are pluses and minuses to every decision, so, âpeople just have to make the choice that feels right to themâ.
Delving further into the territory of âthings teachers aren’t meant to sayâ, Pine confirms that âthe academic programme that you follow is only 50 per cent of collegeâ. From independent living to society commitments and friendships, Pine acknowledges that âso much of that is going to be much harder for the next six to 12 monthsâ. To this end, she offers the same advice to Trinity freshers as she would to her own in UCD: âIf you need help, ask for it â because it is there.â As an associate professor herself, Pine predicts that it may be harder for teaching staff to gauge student struggles in a virtual space, so she urges students to âlet your teachers knowâ. She concludes: âHang in there, and know that it will get better.â