Unexpected

Who'd have thunk it, the most boring sounding module turns out to be looking like it might be the most interesting. It's a mandatory one, and is called Essential Practical Skills or some such. Which pelts fear into my heart. That says to me microscopes, and preparing things and such.*

It probably will involve these things. However, the lecturer is so positive, and genuinely appears interested in all 79 of us that I think it might be okay. Okay he might be faking it, but I don't think he was, he seemed sincere. And enthusiastic, which must be quite hard when you've been given what must essentially be the most dull module to teach ("yeah so you'll get these first years and you have to teach them to write and use microscopes, and not kill themselves").

I am a little perturbed that our first essay is to be handwritten...

* Curiously the one practical skill I am bizarrely now quite happy with, dissection, they don't do much of because "students don't like it". WTF. Seriously this annoys me. Let me cut things up damn you.

Tuesday (and Wednesdayish)

Well Tuesday was the first lesson in an actual lab. Not doing any practical stuff though. It was however, a very warm lab, the same warm lab that contributed to my going a bit wrong when college visited the university open day. So my please open the windows plan can't come soon enough. Very traditional style lecturer, a proper actual professor too, but good. I don't mind if they're not especially warm people if they make sense, which he did.

I am, however, starting to feel like a grumpy old woman. Door slamming, persistently late, noisy, chattery people are starting to annoy me. Being 18 is not an excuse for not turning up on time, all the time. And note to the five boys behind me, you get upset because you maybe have to be parted from each other for a lesson and make a whole row of people change places? Seriously, what are you six?

Today is my first evening lesson...

First proper lesson/s

Today was the first day I had an actual lesson. This afternoon, 1-5 was the scheduled slot, however in practice it was 1-2 lecture and then 4-5 lecture. With nothing to do in the middle bit, bar trying to avoid the noisy, busy, hellish Fresher's Fair (nice to share info, but please universities of the world realise that some of us do not like crowds).
This bizarre system is so that next week and the two weeks after the middle slot can be used for drop in tutorials, I'm almost tempted to have issues even when I don't, just so I have something to do. Then the four weeks after that we have from 2-5 doing practicals...and then after that its back to the drop in or nothingness.

I find this baffling, and annoying frankly. Why they can't schedule the two lectures one after the other I don't understand. But hey ho.

Lecture theatre seats 180 and there are dead on 180 in the class. Which is snug. And also means we can only go in the not quite so shiny lecture theatre, because none of the others are big enough.

Observations from first proper lectures... Some people are totally oblivious, particularly late people. C'mon you people have you no sense of embarrassment?! Doors are loud. Lecturers make bad jokes, and they fall far flatter in a bigger room (secret to this teach only small groups with unreliable humour). And scanning your ID card is all a bit Jennifer Government for my tastes.

Not in uni today (oddly) but still spending on it...

According to one of the many handbooks I have been given in the last week, I needed some special clothes. Special in the sense that they aren't things I'd normally buy-trousers and a "bright coloured anorak". I'm not quite sure why people seem to think that its implausible to do muddy and knee scuffing things in a skirt, I've managed thus far in my life (personally I think grazed knees are rather fetching). But such it is, and so I spent half the night hunting for a very very cheap pair, since I don't intend to spend much on something I wouldn't voluntarily wear.*

Thanks to the joys of camping shops I now own a fluorescent pink anorak. I defy anyone not to find me in that thing.


*No really I hate trousers that much. How the rest of you women are comfortable in something that attempts to bisect your bum is beyond me. "Figure hugging" jeans are imo one step away from speculum. And blokes. Why? Seriously, why? You have all those (frankly ludicrous looking) attachments, why on earth do you insist on trying to shove the things in trousers. Looks painful.

Day 4

The day of not much.

Wandered around found the timetables. Found that we're supposed to read something before the first lecture. Which is the book I ordered from Waterstone's, but the publisher has told me won't be available for 4-6 weeks.
Borrowed one of only 2 copies of book from library (nerdiest=firstiest) so I can read said chapter.
Watched Costa man get increasingly despondent with till.
Went to health and safety lecture.
Cancelled book with Waterstone's because found Blackwell's have some.
Got bad back from bag.
Came home to find lab coat delivered.

No uni tomorrow.

Day three, the day in which, reader, we actually enrol

Yes it took till Wednesday. However, it was a billion times more simple than it had been made out to be, and that's even allowing for the fact that there were two me's on the system.

So now being formally enrolled means I have a new shiny ID card, so have been able to apply for my [freebie] NUS extra card, and student mango card (35% off bus fare, yes please).

I also collected my strange collection of essential tools. Including my rather fashionable hard hat.

And had a library tour, which I was grateful to have as an unofficial one, rather than the proper one because he made it last 15mins rather than half an hour.

Day two aka "The most expensive day of the week so far"

Today was subject introduction day.

Which is essentially sitting in a room and having the subject and modules explained to you. This might all seem like stuff you can read in the handbook, and indeed some of it is, but it is a good way to find out the stuff not in the module books.

Unfortunately the main thing I found out today is how to spend monies...

• The needed texts for subject 1 have changed from the two I was told about before the summer to add a third. In the onsite branch of Waterstone's you can buy as a set of three, relatively cheaply, but the third on its own was 52£. Luckily Amazon works on my phone, and was 4£ cheaper.
• A lab coat to be purchased. The most depressing garment known to mankind. Bought over the phone this evening from a jolly Yorkshireman, who assures me I will have it before next week. I hope so or I won't be allowed in the laboratory.
• And then a series of slightly strange items for playing with rocks-a clinometer (tell me I'm not the only person finding that equipment name implausibly suggestive), a fine hat to make me look like a doozer and some other stuffs.
• Mandatory fieldwork to which you have to contribute to...which comes to a total 500£ in a four month period.

The last point has meant having to change one of my modules because I can't afford to do it. I was going to do an Ecology module that has a four day fieldwork, but two trips in such a short time means there's no way I can justify it :-(

This is one of the slight disadvantages of a not rich from research type uni. From some heavy handed googling I've noticed that some universities fully subsidise mandatory field trips, and notably they are big research led universities. 

Lets see how much money I can spend tomorrow...

First day part two

Partly today was a bit of travelling thirteen miles to listen to a man say stuff that I'd worked out already, but I suppose maybe the rest of the world isn't as much a chronic planning fetishist as I am...

Got lots and lots of very heavy paperwork, which made my poor shoulder near cry.
Looked like a complete dweeb eating my packed lunch (ah kids you may look cool now with your Upper Crust sammiches but wait till your loan runs out).
Met a very nice lady in finance who stopped me from having a near heart attack after...
We discovered that the bursary for being a local student isn't given until the following year now :-s
Had a look in the university branch of Waterstone's and had both happy palpitations and panicky ones; seeing all those lovely books and then seeing the price of said lovely books.

And I am already baffled by the timetable thing, not because its particularly hard, but because one set of information doesn't match another. I'm hoping the timetable leaflet is the wrong part, and thus far the evidence works in that direction. Attached to the front was an addendum deleting several modules on the pathway that my friend from college is following, and on her other subject it had two modules listed twice for no good reason. So it isn't exactly demonstrating itself to be a comprehensive and reliable document right now...

Tomorrow I get my subject introductions and have already got some questions ready (oh yessy I am that nerdy), the first one being to clarify whether the book or the timetable is correct in saying I need to take a particular module, and the second about fieldwork clashes*...

* A quick skim of the sciencey modules might well persuade one that science is basically about going on holiday (Yorkshire, Wales, Somerset, Tenerife, Mallorca...)

First Day Part one

Just about to catch bus to first day...eeek. First day is only a couple of hours and doesn't really involve much it seems.

Observations so far:
1. I'd forgotten the 'joy' of BBC breakfast (enhanced by the fact that I get London news not local)
2. It's cold.

Booooks

I opened my email yesterday morning to find that late on Friday I'd been sent a message with a list of "Recommended Reading" and a note suggesting one book be started reading before the course starts. So less recommended and more silently mandatory. At the start of the summer I bought a set of books that are the token  mandatory items for one subject (and I'm glad I did so then since they've increased in price in this run up to the start of term), which cost me 60£ (and that's it being a bargain :-s *), and one other book that will hopefully help me with something I know I'm going to struggle with.

So given that it was suggested to start reading beforehand I decided to start book hunting:
Amazon-edition on list not in stock and new and used started at "oh my god" leading to "that's half my mortgage".
Amazon-edition not on list but same edition (how to make monies, become textbook publisher), 3-4 weeks. I start in a fortnight so no good.
Blackwells-Ten pounds more than Amazon, 1-3 weeks, unless I wanted to go to Oxford or Liverpool to collect said book. Er no.
Waterstones online-Same price as Blackwells and same time period. The stock checker said none anywhere.
WHSmith-I worked for them long enough that I should have known looking was pointless. But over four weeks and ten pounds more than Blackwells and Waterstones.

Since I was in Nottingham yesterday I decided to check in Waterstones (because I believe online stock checkers not a jot), they didn't have any and the assistant checked the university branch, who also didn't have any (and the Waterstones man seemed as baffled by this as I am). So I've ordered it, and am now crossing every crossable bit of my body that a) it arrives on time and; b) that I did give the right email address.

It would be nice though if books on reading lists (and this is hardly a light bedtime reading thing, unless you are unhinged) were a) in enough print volume that shops can stock them and; b) in bloody stock before university starts.


*The on campus branch of a large chain has a leaflet advertising said book set at fifteen pounds more expensive than I bought it and described as a bargain. Yeah I think you and I Mr Bookshop, have very different concepts of bargain.

Free and not so free part 1...

Apart from the whole expanding horizons, better career prospects business one of the advantages of student-hood is, in theory, all the free things you get.
Except the NUS card that you get free is pretty much only accepted as discount at Dorothy Perkins and the odd branch of other shops where the staff are nice enough to ignore the rules. Because what you need is the NUS Extra card. Which isn't free. Its 11£. Which seems an awful lot to me if you don't regularly eat 25£ worth of Domino's pizza, fit in anything they sell  at Miss Selfridge and are far too geeky to think spending 30£ on a haircut reasonable. So the only reason this scruffy haired gal who hasn't fit in anything they sell at Miss Selfridge since she was about 12 is getting one is because it comes free with the bank account. Which is a reasonable perk of student-hood.
There's plenty you can shop around and some let you have it even before university (I'm with Lloyd'sTSB and they let you start it in Access year). And they have freebies! So with mine I got some MP3s and a speaker, the Extra card and, to the great amusement of those that know me best, a YHA membership. The freebies probably aren't the best thing to look for an account on, but they can be useful (probably more useful if I could actually see myself holidaying in a barn, but hey ho).

Planning

The university have put the module descriptions and timetables online (eventually) and being a chronic lister, planner type I have been reading over them endlessly.

Being as the degree I'll be doing is two subjects I have 2 basic choices in how I go about this. Option 1, which I think I'm going with for year 1 at the least, is 50/50. Option 2 is 75/25. * There are advantages and disadvantages of both, as best I can tell (though I'm sure come induction they'll tell me a few more), and as long as you have the appropriate modules you can change from 50/50 to 75/25 and vice versa. So at the moment I'm thinking the best approach is to go with the 50/50 and if at the end of the year I really really want to do more of one I can, and otherwise I stay 50/50.
The main disadvantage is that starting with 50/50 means obviously less modules taken in each subject so my options in year 2 and 3 are in both a bit limited (more so in Zoology it has to be said), its not impossible but it does mean that I am unlikely to get to play with bugs. However, the module that interests me most of all is in the third year and has no pre-requisites (oh yes I've read that far ahead!). The second disadvantage is that because Zoology has three mandatory modules (one of which is chemistry-oh how I have cried) I only get to pick one optional one-which is going to be either Ecology or Human Biology. And is probably likely to be the former.
The advantage conversely is that by having my second subject as joint to start with rather than a minor I get to do some interesting modules, the two mandatory modules (that would take up my whole minor selection) are okay sounding, but not quite as interesting as some of the others sound. And at least this way I'm giving both subjects a fair chance.

The other thing I have found out, that I hadn't even considered might happen (how dense am I?!) is that one of my classes is in the evening. I assumed, very naively it seems, that the evening slots were predominantly for people doing part time studies. Luckily the mother unit is willing to have the small shouty person overnight, but I'd be stuffed if she wasn't (especially since I haven't got a childcare grant, because I haven't got a fee loan for this year...a rant of epic proportions).

Third thing that I've realised is that even with car sharing I am going to be spending about 60£ a month on travel (I've never so wanted so wanted someone to be in the same place as me at the same time so much as I do now!). If I wasn't getting lifts it'd be over 100£. Eek!







*There is also option 3 which is essentially 37.5/37.5/25, but I don't think that would work very well for my subjects (plus I can't imagine an appropriate third). I can imagine it working very well if you were doing say English/History/Education.