UCD v. Maynooth

goose1

Filling in my CAO and soo stuck between these 2 colleges?? Im doing arts and I heard the lectures in UCD are huuuge and its hard to meet people and all,, how far outside Dub is Maynooth, like is it handyish to go out in Dub if youre from Maynooth :S..Like which of the 2 colleges is better?

Michaelrsh

I was thinking of putting Maynooth down on my CAO this year and I live in north Dublin. I went out there one day and it only took an hour, except the roads were fairly clear ... might be a different story during the morning rush hour though!!

fillmore jive

Yeha a mate of mine is doing arts and he said that the lectures in UCD arts are bleeding massive but you'll still get to meet people in tutorials and that. Also, lectures will get smaller in your 2nd and 3rd year, so don't worry too much about not having a clue anyone is and having to sit beside strangers all the time. As long as you put the effort in to get to know people you'll be grand.

Zounds

Classes in Arts in UCD are massive (up to 500 people) but if you get involved in clubs or societies you'll have no bother meeting people.

Maynooth is 30mins (intercity train) to an hour (bus) outside Dublin (the commuter train falls in between). The train service is, in my experience, very comfortable and very reliable.

chrissor

Ha, I am in a good position to answer this, I am from Maynooth and live there but I commute to UCD.

Personally I prefer UCD as a university, I like the place, the facilities, particularly for sport are great and the large amount of people and opportunities to meet them, Maynooth has a much smaller student population but you may prefer that.

Some advantages to being in Maynooth is that you will be living in a town, all the amenities you need will be just minutes away, the people are really nice and the town itself is pretty cool.

The nightlife is great in Maynooth and Dublin is very accesible if you want to go out there, although nowadays getting a nightlink back to Maynooth is only possible on Friday and Saturday nights, a taxi will cost about 40 euro.

Getting to Dublin is really easy, trains to Connolly are either 30 or 42 minutes long, buses outside of rush hours are about 40-55 minutes.
The average journey for me from Maynooth to UCD was 1 hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half. I take the train then dart to Sydney Parade then walk to UCD in rush hour time, if it was the middle of the day or late in the evening, I would just take the 66 then the 10 and the opposite for coming back, this also takes about 75-90 minutes, depending on your timing. So its a bit annoying but can be handled, you can also crash at friends if you are out in Dublin, I just got myself a girlfriend who lived near UCD so that was handy

Fad

Maynooth is the coldest place on earth........

I went to both open days......UCD was significantly warmer!

Still like Maynooth though.

dyl10

Trying to weigh up colleges in this kind of way, really isn't very helpful.
People have preferences and like what they like.
Your degree in most cases will probably be held in a higher regard if it comes from UCD, but you seem to be asking about the social side of things in both colleges.

So in answer to that, it's anybody's guess as to which is better.

chrissor

Fad wrote: »

Maynooth is the coldest place on earth........

I went to both open days......UCD was significantly warmer!

Still like Maynooth though.

Coldest place on earth!

Its quite lovely here today, I'm out in my back garden with my laptop getting my tan on;)

fillmore jive

chrissor wrote: »

Coldest place on earth!

Its quite lovely here today, I'm out in my back garden with my laptop getting my tan on;)

Point proven, term is over:)

chrissor

fillmore jive wrote: »

Point proven, term is over:)

Hah, very true.

OP, as a poster above said, it really depends on what you are looking for in your degree, I dount there is anyone who can give a balanced unbiased answer to that but I guess UCD has a better reputation.

In terms of the social side, if you take part in clubs and societies, you will have no problem in UCD. If not, then you have a better chance in Maynooth as everyone goes to the same few of pubs and the 1 (soon to be 2) nightclubs.

El Siglo

I just finished My degree in UCD, and now I'm doing funded research in Maynooth, here's my advice:
I'm sick and tired of the usual 'Oh UCD has 5 million students to a lecture and it's so hard to make friends...' no it's not, I went from a crappy tech school, where none of my classmates went to UCD and I still made an entire set of new friends, trust me when I say if I can do that so can anyone else! Pick a university based on what they do in research and subject terms e.g. UCD has the best economics course in the country, but NUIM has the best geography course in the country (trust me they've passed everyone out on this). Night life stuff aside, you pick and stay in a college for what it does, everyone makes friends wherever they go, not unless they're socially retarded. I'd weigh up:

• Research and Subject Choice within subject field
• Cost of Living
• Accommodation (cost and availability)
• Part-time Employment

These are a rough break down of points worth considering, night life and 'friends making' are relative depending upon your own personality, accommodation and price is very important and it will be a monkey on your back for the entirety of your degree. Research and subject choice really affects what you're interested and what the college is interested in, so go onto the staff pages of some of the lecturers that work in the departments of the subjects you're interested in. Cost of living, well this depends on how expensive a place is, and again will relate to accommodation costs. Part-time employment... we'll see how things work out with the economy. Also, it's worthwhile talking to people who've gone to these places and asking about the night life, Maynooth probably hit's this one on the head, although small you can still go into to Dublin, but given the choice Maynooth is pretty good craic and it's fairly close knit, UCD has some of these attributes but not on the same scale. It's how you rank certain things i.e. what do you want from your time at college not what you think you can get.

Time Magazine

El Siglo wrote: »

UCD has the best economics course in the country

Correction: UCD have the best economics department in the country. They don't have the best course imo.

El Siglo

The Economist wrote: »

Correction: UCD have the best economics department in the country. They don't have the best course imo.

My apologies.

stainluss

The Economist wrote: »

Correction: UCD have the best economics department in the country. They don't have the best course imo.

do they have the best b.comm in the country? i know the smurfit postgraduate is ranked highly , what about quinn?