28 days in, it finally happened. I was woken up by a fire alarm. At 7:30 in the morning... Admittedly I needed to wake up about then anyway in order to be able to be ready to catch a bus to my lecture, but nonetheless, being suddenly and brutally dragged out of sleep by the fire alarm was not the way I had hoped to go about things. Needless to say however, it proved incredibly effective. After throwing on my dressing gown and walking outside barefoot in the cold, the residences team told us it was the yearly "Trial run" to make sure we knew what to do and where to go, so it's not even like the alarm was set off by a student.
Anyway, I wrote the first part of this a week ago (3 weeks ago), and got sidetracked, so to be honest I don't really remember where it was going, It's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted, and a lot has happened. Assignments have been handed in and returned to me, and I've had 3 sessions of labs which I'm yet to even mention. My first piece of lab work that counts for anything was returned to me as 55%, which if it counted towards a degree classification (it doesn't) would be a mid 2:2. Not too bad considering I still feel like I just got here, and it's well above the pass mark at 40%, so for the moment at least I'm happy with it. Everything else seems to be averaging at 60-70%, looking at my gradebook, although I'm still waiting on marks from some stuff, so it seems to be fairly positive, and I'm just about managing to keep up with the work I'm being set, so I guess that's good. Who knows really?
Oh, and at this point I should probably clarify that I am not in fact learning welsh, despite the title of this post, living in wales you tend to pick up stuff. I've now been here for 5 weeks, and it still feels like I moved in yesterday, but I figured I've probably now been here long enough to write a pros and cons list for things I like and dislike about the university so far, in case there is anyone who is considering applying here or applied here or knows someone who has/is planning to. I'm also happy to answer any questions people might have regarding my own experience of university so far, so feel free to contact me, or get someone who knows me to contact me, and failing either of those things I'm under the impression there's a comments section somewhere on this blog, so by all means put questions there. Without further ado though, I present to you: The pros and cons of my 5 weeks in Cardiff!
Pros:
- Locals here are really friendly, it's not uncommon to end up in a conversation with someone while waiting to cross the road, and this really helps with settling in
- Students I've spoken to are also friendly, though a significant number of them appear to be drunk 90% of the time, so if you get over that it's fine? I guess?
- Cardiff feels like a really safe place to be. I've never been in a situation where I've been worried about getting somewhere, and that takes a lot of pressure off when you're still settling.
- University buildings are surprisingly easy to navigate. While its true that some of them can be like mazes, buildings I've needed to navigate have been numbered intuitively, so if you know what room your lecture is in it is really easy to get there. The only exception here is that the ground floor is denoted by 0, which can be a bit confusing at first, but really isn't a big deal once you know about it.
- Cardiff has pretty good bus links to places, so if you need to get somewhere from the city centre you almost certainly can. Cardiff bus also offer a free, pay as you go iff card for travelling on the buses, so you can pre pay your bus fare and not have to worry about finding change
- Lots of student support, pretty much the entirety of Park Place is dedicated to students, so everything you could ever need is in one place
- University hall is a really nice place, once you get over the fact it looks like a prison, and is on top of a rather large hill, so you get amazing views out over the city, especially at night.
- Uni hall has a free, hourly study bus, so getting to lectures in the morning is relatively easy
- Living by yourself gives you absolute total freedom over your routine, if you want to go and do something, (within reason and the confines of law) you probably can. If you want to eat you can eat (if you have food) and if you want to sleep or go out you can sleep or go out.
Cons (University specific) :
- My halls of residence are literally miles away from the university itself (2 mile walk). There are halls which are much closer, but as I applied as an insurance applicant I got stuck with whatever was left
- My halls of residence are at the top of a huge hill, need I say more?
- Cardiff University RESLAN is a pain to set up, and for the first couple of weeks would frequently disconnect my devices from the internet for no reason, though is working fine now. If you're considering coming here then make sure you have a lot of mobile data just in case.
- Uni hall bus has driven past as I've been walking out of the building more times than I care to admit (4 times to be exact), and because of the timings I probably miss the bus back 4 days in every 5. I then have 3 options: Pay £1.30 for a bus, wait an hour for the next free bus or walk back, and its a 40 minute walk up a huge hill...
- Living in uni hall makes 9 am lectures torture, as you have to wake up at 7:30 to get ready on time to catch the bus.
- Cardiff bus is incredibly unreliable. I spent half an hour today (who knows when today is at this point) waiting for a 52 bus up to my hall, only for the 52 bus I was on to be overtaken by another 52 bus going in the same direction
Cons (General) :
- I'm convinced sleep is not something that exists as a student. This is likely the case wherever you're going though, so isn't really a point against Cardiff as much as a point against university generally.
- Fire alarms, they suck, although living in Nevern is quite good, as 7 weeks in I am yet to be around when it has been set off by a student, it's never fun when they test them and you have to work out whether or not you actually have to evacuate
- If you don't buy or cook food, you don't have food, I found this out the hard way when I realised the only food I had was chocolate biscuits. (not REALLY the hard way, but hey!)
- No money, well... I should say, lots of money, but a very tight budget, once you account for rent. It's all too easy to think "I have lots of student loan money" and spend it all before your rent needs to be paid. Your money needs to last!
General points, good and bad :
- I've been genuinely surprised how easy it has been for me to share the fact I'm a Christian with those people I speak to
- I got onto this course with grades lower than most clearing applicants, and while there's nothing wrong with that necessarily as it's really now irrelevant, every time I mess up or don't understand something it just makes me feel even more like I don't really deserve to be here. It's a weird situation, but there will absolutely be stuff you don't understand, no matter what degree course you choose to do, and keeping on top of it can be difficult, but is also incredibly important
I'm sorry this took so long to write, I kept getting sidetracked and not knowing how I wanted to finish it, I was never exactly happy with the ending. I decided to leave it here for now, as its honestly just been far too long, and I'm not really sure what else there is to say. It's been a while, I've not killed myself yet, and yeah, that's about it. Who knows when my next post is going to be...
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