The uni dilemma

Oh, for goodness "sake" :)

xp

(just in case the lift didn't have you convinced)

YES! That was in the languages building. The best thing about my visiting day... I must have spent at least half an hour in that thing. Does it flip over when it gets to the top/bottom to go the other way?

cheapest City for Students in the UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5251632.stm

Has one of the largest Student Union Buildings of any UK University

University buildings are a short walking distance to the City Centre

I went 1988-91, amazing 18 years ago !

Back in those days there were no mobile phones, no internet [and social networks like myspace and bebo], no email accounts, essays were hand written rather than word processed, hardly any students worked part time jobs in the term time, there were no tuition fees, means tested student grants existed, for 88-89 [year 1] and 89-90 [year 2] student loans didn't exist, beer cost 70p pint in the SU. How times have changed !

depends whether you wanna live life on the edge, bro

Millenium Stadium
Cardiff Bay Developments
Better City Centre Shopping
Spillers Records
Cheaper City to live in
A more buzzing City Centre
Fast trains to London
Wide choice of Student Accommodation
Chicken Curry and Chips available at 3am in Caroline Street
and devolved power: National Assembly for Wales

I've been here 4 years, have absolutely no regard for personal safety,and only come a cropper once (and only from teenagers in a shortcut alley)

Nightlife here is pretty great, starting to get included on more and better tour schedules + homegrown music scene is consistently interesting (arctic monkeys aside)

Also, i dunno where you're from, but from Sheffield you have easy transport links to leeds, manchester (trains home at 2am and 4am, i go clubbing there sometimes and sleep in my own bed afterwards!), nottingham etc. The peak district! Spoilt for northern choice really.

Everyone i know that's been to uni in Wales quit before their second year thru boredom and went home (ok this was bangor and not cardiff, but still)

Oh and you'd get a good education here too, probably!

Another thing, due to the cheapness of Cardiff, my student grant is cheaper than what would be required for Sheffield...... is it worth the debt? Can I get the grant topped up maybe?

The year i joined the two existing universities UWIST and UCC were merged into UWCC - University of Wales: College of Cardiff [or Cardiff University as everyone refers to it] there were over 10,000 students

No idea about Cerys ! I was on a BSc Business Administration course, and I can imagine her doing something in Humanities, correct?

i swear there was a thread somewhere about paternoster lifts. we had one at uni of essex.

go to sheffield, then. end of story!

cardiff's an interesting and likeable city, in my limited knowledge of it; the beer's very good. but sheffield FUCKING ROCKS and IMHO beats it hands down.

is that paternoster lift still there, dudes? i'll be down there in october and I MUST GO ON THAT FUCKING LIFT. then i can die happy. where is this "languages building" of which you speak? oh wow.

otoh I visited cardiff for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and jeez, what a shithole!

i have to say that i didn't like cardiff nearly as much as i'd expected (and i'm a fan of decaying/regenerating cities). but if you're an outdoorsy type and have a car, the surrounding countryside is pretty nice.

Univillage Launches UK Facebook
http://mashable.com/2006/08/21/univillage-launches-uk-facebook/
Univillage, which launched officially on August 16th, is the first social networking site aimed squarely at UK university (equivalent of US college) students - pretty clearly, it’s trying to be the UK’s Facebook. The service is available to those with a ac.uk email address, but you can sign up with any address for the first few weeks. The reason for that - and the choice of launch date - is that English high school students received their results last week. New students can now network well in advance of Fresher’s Week, where they would normally meet for the first time.

Univillage
http://www.univillage.com/Home.jhtml

...what about Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland students !

Seriously, though, the UK's Facebook is, erm, Facebook. It's HERE. Univillage might try but it won't succeed. It's also got 'village' in the title. Village. It just SPEAKS of mediocrity.

"I've seen you on Univillage" = end of conversation.

And by the way, I chose Sheffield in the end. Cardiff seemed way too conditional. Death lift here I come!!!

You may only realise who your great mates are two or even three terms in. Enjoy this one, while it lasts, as much as you can, and by thunder get involved.

And learn how to cook pasta. Carbohydrates fuel the eager student.

Freshers keep walking past my house carrying duvets and dishes, i feel old :(

Get yourself down to Offbeat on tuesday night (its in the raynor lounge within bar-one), wonderful indie club night.

that makes me feel really OLD. my "number" in first year was an oft-broken payphone shared with two floors' worth of other freshers!

louis OTM about the selection-process thing. i remember making about 20 new "friends" on my first night and thinking, woah, i'm set up for ever here. within a couple of weeks, the whole dynamic had changed ... then it changed again ... oh, it was fucking wonderful. i'm all nostalgic now!

and i'm still in touch with one person i met on that first night!

get yourself down to the Black cat for some fantastic beer.

Other things.. the city library has a great collection of films, dvd, cds and books - devour them. I've never been so can't vouch for it, but check out a night called Razor Stilleto.

You're in a good position for getting to places like Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool so find a gang of likeminded people and make regular trips out. (As good as Sheffield is, Manchester's nightlife trounces it.)

xxpost

For more exciting stories, and some magical diary action, check here.

I may, however, have some Mickey-esque 'i am so embarrassed right now' tales to tell on that other thread...

time was, you'd need to come in with an existing member to get yr membership card, they've abandoned that since losing a lot of their punters to a new gay bar.
As i see it, the bouncers take a look at you and decide whether you can come in or not -which sounds awful but considering it's a (very) cheap late bar there are a lot of tossers who try their luck.

I'll keep you posted as the first days progress..... nothing is making me think that Sheffield wasn't the right choice, everything is just gelling perfectly.

Off to bed now, but good luck with whatever they force you to do. And pray that it only involves alcohol...

Oh God, what a hell of a year that turned out to be. Now my major dilemma is, do I slave away over the summer doing coursework (when there are next to no tutors/administrators around to receive it), or just repeat the first year, which my personal tutor believes is a must if I wanted to have adequate knowledge for the second year. Don't get me wrong, I did work hard, I was just so out of touch with some areas of the university and university procedure in general, I didn't realise how one essay could affect a whole module, and also took some of the loopholes in the rules a little too seriously. I also developed a bad case of anxiety/depression after being attacked (in the Moor Shopping Centre!), which happened around the time most people could have sorted out these problems.

The control over myself, my reputation and my spending has whittled away to below 0 and there are some who believe that uni may not have been for me after all. I am guilty of doing manic things like hopping on a train to Inverness while drunk, realising at Durham and having to buy another ticket there bound for my home town, not cheap. Please tell me that is expected usual drunken hi-jinx of someone my age and I'm not going crazy, because that is how I feel right now.

Please help, thank you....

Plus the module choices I made were horrific and not proportionate to each other in terms of units at all. If I repeated the year I could choose them a bit better.

Being a year older than everyone else, and the fact of still being in education in the year 2011 is something I can't get my head around though.

Please tell me that is expected usual drunken hi-jinx of someone my age and I'm not going crazy, because that is how I feel right now.

hmm, i'm almost 32 and i still wouldn't rule out doing something like that myself, so ... nah, i wouldn't worry too much. might want to go somewhere nearer and more fun than inverness, mind.

in all seriousness, though, this is the sentence that sticks out like a bad hangover:

The control over myself, my reputation and my spending has whittled away to below 0

you've gotta sort that out first. how you do that is up to you, but you might consider giving up drinking for a month. i did, just after my 30th birthday, and it gave me perspective like you wouldn't believe. drastic measures, but hey :)

i do think that repeating the year is probably your best idea, actually. clean slate, and all that.

i went to uni straight out of high school: moved cities to do so, and coming from a strict family, i went CRAZY - not just the first year, but also the second. out of 12 courses over 2 years i only passed 2 (and that was by the good grace of departmental fuck-ups). i dropped out, went and worked for a few years, then went back and started all over again at the ripe old age of 24. had to be in classes with 18yr olds, which sucked, but glad i did it. now almost finished my english lit degree!

don't stress about it - you're self-aware enough to realise things are getting a little out of hand, and that's a good start. maybe get some counselling and take a break from the partying for awhile, till you get you head sorted. but don't punish yourself for things that have already been done and can't be changed.

Not sure what course you're doing, but your first year grades doesn't count toward the final grade do they? It's there to let people get used to uni life and it's the years afterwards that really count, or it does in the world of arts degrees anyway.

Don't use 'drunken hijinks' as a get-out clause, if it's affecting you (and others) in a bad way, sort it out.

My first year marks didn't count towards my final result, but boy were those modules the foundation for the next three years.