What's first year in college like?

Dbstf

What's first year in college like after the leaving cert and not knowing anybody there? Is it better than school? Are people friendlier?

Davidius

Well sir, that depends on a number of factors. Financial stability, social skills, work ethic and the phases of the moon are all contributing factors.

Most people are not very friendly, no. They will judge your clothing and speak ill of you in front of women.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Dbstf wrote: »

What's first year in college like after the leaving cert and not knowing anybody there? Is it better than school? Are people friendlier?

It depends a lot on what course you are doing. If it's a big course then it seems some folk have trouble making friends within their course. In smaller courses though it tends to be the opposite. Classes get quite close. Overall though it is certainly friendlier than secondary school.

What doesn't vary from course to course are the clubs and societies, which are great places to make friends, and where many people meet life long friends.

The thing about college is it's a much bigger pond than school, which means there will be more people there to have stuff in common with.

Dbstf

Davidius wrote: »

Well sir, that depends on a number of factors. Financial stability, social skills, work ethic and the phases of the moon are all contributing factors.

Most people are not very friendly, no. They will judge your clothing and speak ill of you in front of women.

They will judge your clothing? lol i thought uni was supposed to be more mature than school ..

brownlad

Dbstf wrote: »

They will judge your clothing? lol i thought uni was supposed to be more mature than school ..

i thought that when i went to the open day..... and in almost all the talks and tours i went on i was told " thats a cool jacket" more often than i was asked whether i was thinking of goin to ucd lol...


in fairness it was a pretty awesome jacket;) ....and in the end i did decide to apply to ucd...because they liked my jacket :P ....

supernutrino

Dbstf wrote: »

They will judge your clothing? lol i thought uni was supposed to be more mature than school ..

Ok.

On the social side....

UCD can seem like a very intimidating place to a newbie.
If you don't bring half your secondary school with you it can seem, looking around, like everyone is in groups of friends and content enough that they'd not wanna meet new people.
Nothing could be further from the truth, even people who already have friends from school will be quite social around here.

Don't be intimidated by the place, most people you strike up a convo with will be really sound. I don't know your interests or what your like as a person but this generally goes for any group.
Join societies and if your a sporty person you'll find them all very welcoming as well.
The bigger socieites like CandE etc are not great for making friends in the sense of inside the society itself, they just organize piss ups etc (and pad the CV of their board members ), but at the events they organize are great times to meet new people, when your out on the piss in the first few weeks, talk to people and you'll end up making friends.

Smaller societies are better for making friends inside the society itself.



I also have to make another point...theres something you will hear ad nauseum from some people in this college, "jasys like i hate these D4 heads ye know, what do all these guys wearing abacrombie think they're mad, they're all such assholes".
I've noticed that almost all those who say this have never talked to them. The idea that anyone whos into sport happens to wear abacrombie or a rugby jersey and has a certain look is an asshole is a ridiculous stereotype.

UCD is not a catoonish American high school, there are no superevil jocks secretly sniggering at you for not wearing brand names, thats an insecure fantasy of some people around here at its really really really starting to get ****ing old at this stage.

Ive never understood this poisonous hate some people have for some based purely on the brand of clothes they wear etc, they hate on um without even knowing who they are as people, its ridiculous, don't get caught in that trap whter it be "them jocks are all assholes" or "them dramasoc are all weird" or "them gamesoc are nerds".
You'll find a lot of people here defy steriotypes, don't pre judge them and you'll have a much better time here.

brownlad wrote: »

i thought that when i went to the open day..... and in almost all the talks and tours i went on i was told " thats a cool jacket" more often than i was asked whether i was thinking of goin to ucd lol...


in fairness it was a pretty awesome jacket;) ....and in the end i did decide to apply to ucd...because they liked my jacket :P ....

Not judging you in that case (tho clearly it was a nice jacket! :P ) they were just finding a way to strike up conversation, thats how you get to know people around here, striking up a convo at random times like that, in tutorials, out in student bar, watching events..


On the academic side....

Nobodys taking attendance (except at tutorials or groupwork), its all up to you. If its pissing rain and you don't wanna come in you don't have to, but don't let that go to your head, if you start falling too far behind you'll be screwed then when the midterms come, and repeating costs money and delays you, you may end up at stage where your friends are graduating and your still there.

Theres loads of options because of modularization and some very interesting electives out there.

pljudge321

Having done first year twice my advice is for the first three weeks or so is introduce yourself to everyone sitting around you in the lecture theatre, nearly everyone is in the same boat of knowing barely anyone else there.

Dbstf

supernutrino wrote: »

Ok.

On the social side....

UCD can seem like a very intimidating place to a newbie.
If you don't bring half your secondary school with you it can seem, looking around, like everyone is in groups of friends and content enough that they'd not wanna meet new people.
Nothing could be further from the truth, even people who already have friends from school will be quite social around here.

Don't be intimidated by the place, most people you strike up a convo with will be really sound. I don't know your interests or what your like as a person but this generally goes for any group.
Join societies and if your a sporty person you'll find them all very welcoming as well.
The bigger socieites like CandE etc are not great for making friends in the sense of inside the society itself, they just organize piss ups etc (and pad the CV of their board members ), but at the events they organize are great times to meet new people, when your out on the piss in the first few weeks, talk to people and you'll end up making friends.

Smaller societies are better for making friends inside the society itself.



I also have to make another point...theres something you will hear ad nauseum from some people in this college, "jasys like i hate these D4 heads ye know, what do all these guys wearing abacrombie think they're mad, they're all such assholes".
I've noticed that almost all those who say this have never talked to them. The idea that anyone whos into sport happens to wear abacrombie or a rugby jersey and has a certain look is an asshole is a ridiculous stereotype.

UCD is not a catoonish American high school, there are no superevil jocks secretly sniggering at you for not wearing brand names, thats an insecure fantasy of some people around here at its really really really starting to get ****ing old at this stage.

Ive never understood this poisonous hate some people have for some based purely on the brand of clothes they wear etc, they hate on um without even knowing who they are as people, its ridiculous, don't get caught in that trap whter it be "them jocks are all assholes" or "them dramasoc are all weird" or "them gamesoc are nerds".
You'll find a lot of people here defy steriotypes, don't pre judge them and you'll have a much better time here.



Not judging you in that case (tho clearly it was a nice jacket! :P ) they were just finding a way to strike up conversation, thats how you get to know people around here, striking up a convo at random times like that, in tutorials, out in student bar, watching events..


On the academic side....

Nobodys taking attendance (except at tutorials or groupwork), its all up to you. If its pissing rain and you don't wanna come in you don't have to, but don't let that go to your head, if you start falling too far behind you'll be screwed then when the midterms come, and repeating costs money and delays you, you may end up at stage where your friends are graduating and your still there.

Theres loads of options because of modularization and some very interesting electives out there.

Well, it's good to hear that there are friendly and more mature people there because to be honest I'm sick of nearly everyone in my school. Even the people that you call "your friends" care about looking more "cool" than you and it's kind of like they are always competing with you on everything. Like who is going to call the other person to hang out or who chats up the better looking "moth" and stuff like that. It's so childish and annoying and the worst part is, 99% of the people I know and call "my friends" are like that.

parker kent

brownlad wrote: »

i thought that when i went to the open day..... and in almost all the talks and tours i went on i was told " thats a cool jacket" more often than i was asked whether i was thinking of goin to ucd lol...


in fairness it was a pretty awesome jacket;) ....and in the end i did decide to apply to ucd...because they liked my jacket :P ....

It's a shame this comic gem was misunderstood by the other posters :pac: :P

supernutrino

Dbstf wrote: »

Well, it's good to hear that there are friendly and more mature people there because to be honest I'm sick of nearly everyone in my school. Even the people that you call "your friends" care about looking more "cool" than you and it's kind of like they are always competing with you on everything. Like who is going to call the other person to hang out or who chats up the better looking "moth" and stuff like that. It's so childish and annoying and the worst part is, 99% of the people I know and call "my friends" are like that.

Ah a lot of college folk are still like that, try to take it in your stride and have fun with it, its the last time in your life you'll have a licence to be totally immature so try to embrace it (within reason...a good chunk of people go over the top drink wise and they're falling out in front of traffic and think thats a good night)

I'd just advise not taking life too seriously, don't let those kinda things annoy you.

If you go in with a positive outlook you'll have a good time. If you go in cynical you'll have a horrible time, your mind will be programmed to look for problems and in that mindset, you'll always find them.
College is a great place to have a fresh start though.

supernutrino

Just a point on the school thing.

I've seen people come in from school who had a horrible time in their school years, and that can happen, I had a great time in school esp latter stages but not everyone does.
But they were so scarred by that, when they came into UCD they were still focusing mentally on how crap their school days were and that became replaced with a fear of the same situation happening in college, making them moody, cynical and withdrawn socially...then because they looked so cranky and withdrawn, they didn't mesh well with others (maybe started presuming everyone with a Canterbury logo on their top was an asshole :P )...thus their fear of college ending up like school became a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you had crap or mediocre school years forget about them and focus on the good time your going to have during college years.

My advice would be to think during the summer about the kinda experience you want to have in college, what societies or sports you'd wanna join, what you really want out of it and above all don't be intimidated by the place.

While you should stay positive about your college experience don't build it up too much in your head either, as common as the cynical "i hate d4 jocks" bastards are people who had far too high expectations of college life and it didn't live up to their vision. Ironically if you just take it in peices week by week and just relax you'll have a way better experience than if you built it up as this frathouse type image in your head.

HavingCrack

Dbstf wrote: »

Well, it's good to hear that there are friendly and more mature people there because to be honest I'm sick of nearly everyone in my school. Even the people that you call "your friends" care about looking more "cool" than you and it's kind of like they are always competing with you on everything. Like who is going to call the other person to hang out or who chats up the better looking "moth" and stuff like that. It's so childish and annoying and the worst part is, 99% of the people I know and call "my friends" are like that.

Unfortunately, life in general is like this so you pretty get used to it. Arseholes remain arseholes whether they're 15 or 50.

supernutrino

HavingCrack wrote: »

Unfortunately, life in general is like this so you pretty get used to it. Arseholes remain arseholes whether they're 15 or 50.

...and sometimes people just have different sense of humor, expectations, attitudes.
Someone being different to you does not make them an asshole automatically.
If you go into college with the attitude that people who have a different attitude towards life than you are arseholes then your gonna see assholes everywhere, and become a bitter cynical asshole yourself, trust me.
Don't define your outlook on college by the negatives, look for the positives.

The above sounds like late teen/early 20s lads just being lads, I don't think a hostile attitude should follow from that, could either try to relax more and go with it, or if you really don't see the fun in that and you really think its that immature maybe you need new mates, and college is a great place to make new friends, you'll make friends for life here if your lucky really close friends, but I've seen people with a negative attitude come in and find new friends in people only because they share that same cynical attitude, thus they spent their time hanging around the arts block looking around sniping at other people to each other (smoke smoke) "place if full of dumb jockboys" (smoke smoke) "look at that slut over there shes like a ****ing barbie doll does she not know its Ireland your not meant to have a tan" (smoke smoke)...and they almost convince themselves they're happy that they're not (whoever they are sniping at) but they look so miserable.

Find friends by common interests not your mutual dislike of certain things in others.

Smeefa

Speaking from personal experience, first year is awesome. Do yourself a favor JOIN A CLUB and get involved. I got into surf club and made a huge group of friends - everyone is super friendly and the craic is unreal!

Smeefa

OSI wrote: »

The first year of college is kinda like butt sex.

"Butt" sex? Seriously? I automatically read the rest of your post in a Jedward voice after seeing that.

Smeefa

OSI wrote: »

Considering the content of the post I would have thought it was obvious it was meant to be a bit of a joke. Perhaps you would prefer if I had referred to it as anal intercourse?

I don't know what about butt sex made you instantly think of Jedward, but there's a guy in the UCD Student Health Center, goes by the name of Counsellor, I'm sure he'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.

Haha I'm sorry I honestly didn't mean it as an attack. Don't think I've ever heard the word "butt" used without an enthusiastically-thick American accent, hence the Jedward voice!

Just engaging in a little light hearted banter.


And tbf, I don't think it would be too difficult to find a connection between Jedward and "butt" sex, no help from Mr. Counsellor needed....

muffinz

hey, just wondering is the campus open these days or is it closed for summer? i want to bring my cousin to the campus coz she thinks shes gonna go this september, i want to show her the su shop and the library and whatnot, is any of that stuff open or is it closed for summer?

Sierra Oscar

muffinz wrote: »

hey, just wondering is the campus open these days or is it closed for summer? i want to bring my cousin to the campus coz she thinks shes gonna go this september, i want to show her the su shop and the library and whatnot, is any of that stuff open or is it closed for summer?

The campus is open for the entire summer, the place does not close down the minute the undergrads depart for summer holidays. There are those who are not fortunate enough to have summer holidays!

Dbstf

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

The campus is open for the entire summer, the place does not close down the minute the undergrads depart for summer holidays. There are those who are not fortunate enough to have summer holidays!

Can people who do not attend UCD currently take a look around the campus?

muffinz

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

The campus is open for the entire summer, the place does not close down the minute the undergrads depart for summer holidays. There are those who are not fortunate enough to have summer holidays!

oooh was not aware of that - good luck with whatever your doing :pac: might pop into the su shop and buy myself a hoody while im there..

spagboll

If your just out of school and not from dublin, dont go to UCD. I love the place, but im a postgrad.

The banter had in the likes of UCC, UCG and UL is a time-of-your-life experience, that said I'm sure UCD has alot to offer particularly with sports, but I've heard so many negatives

spagboll

First year college, academics wise can go something like this for many people, "hmmmm, this is so easy, I have less than 15 hours a week, what a joke, who's going out tonight? and tomorrow??......exams, better start studying, oh my word, how did we cover this much, why didnt I go to lectures, wow how did I pass all that, who's going out?"

Sierra Oscar

Dbstf wrote: »

Can people who do not attend UCD currently take a look around the campus?

I don't see why not - people do it all the time.

If you know a student currently in UCD it might be worth asking them to give you a tour around the campus too.

Crow92

It really depends on if your joining clubs and societies and more importantly your course, some people make friends regardless if there's 200 in their lectures and new people in each one, not everyone will make friends like that though.

There are about 60 people in my course and I know every, first names, last names, pets names, the whole lot. That said I do spend about 35-45 hours a week in their presence so you do become really close to your class so ya, really can depend on your class size.

stop

muffinz wrote: »

hey, just wondering is the campus open these days or is it closed for summer? i want to bring my cousin to the campus coz she thinks shes gonna go this september, i want to show her the su shop and the library and whatnot, is any of that stuff open or is it closed for summer?

The Shop!? There's plenty more around campus to see!

WeeBushy

Dbstf wrote: »

Can people who do not attend UCD currently take a look around the campus?

Yeah, course ya can There's always people wandering around, walking their dogs or going for a run etc that aren't in the college. The buildings are open during the weekdays and as long as you are not causing a nuisance I'm sure you would be more than welcome to look around. Get someone who knows the campus to show you around if you can, you'll get a better sense of it.

Ah, missed Sierra Oscar's response.

bnt

Dbstf wrote: »

Can people who do not attend UCD currently take a look around the campus?

Yes - but not the Library. They will not let you in unless you're staff, student, or registered as having a "genuine scholarly need", they say. :rolleyes:

bigred100

spagboll wrote: »

First year college, academics wise can go something like this for many people, "hmmmm, this is so easy, I have less than 15 hours a week, what a joke, who's going out tonight? and tomorrow??......exams, better start studying, oh my word, how did we cover this much, why didnt I go to lectures, wow how did I pass all that, who's going out?"

I might aswell have been in school again, 9 to 4 most days, the odd break in between.

fabregas4cesc

just finished my time in UCD, ah it was great! some of the girls are somethin else, oif!! A lot of people are quite shy to begin with, when you're in your first seminars they'll try make you split into groups and talk to eachother and try make friends, which doesn't always work. One night on the piss and everything's hilarious the next day and everyone's friends!
keep an eye out for the swan and the brown duck at the lake, not the best of friends

WeeBushy

That swan is some jerk. What an asshole.

fabregas4cesc

WeeBushy wrote: »

That swan is some jerk. What an asshole.

the duck's no saint either pal!

WeeBushy

The duck is just getting revenge against the big bully of a swan! The swan totally started it :P

supernutrino

Gotta remember the Swan thinks of it as his permanent turf, were just little punks passing though HIS turf.

brownlad

fabregas4cesc wrote: »

just finished my time in UCD, ah it was great! some of the girls are somethin else, oif!! A lot of people are quite shy to begin with, when you're in your first seminars they'll try make you split into groups and talk to eachother and try make friends, which doesn't always work. One night on the piss and everything's hilarious the next day and everyone's friends!
keep an eye out for the swan and the brown duck at the lake, not the best of friends

is that good or bad;) ....

OneOfThem Stumbled

Dbstf wrote: »

What's first year in college like after the leaving cert and not knowing anybody there? Is it better than school? Are people friendlier?

University is a lot more like real life than school - which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you see it.

You won't know everyone, or even a fraction of the people on the campus. There isn't a clear division between 'years' or classes. Everyone you know will not be in the same clubs or subjects. Nobody will hold your hand, check your homework (lol), or generally care if you ace or fail.

In general people are friendlier, the atmosphere is way less bitchy, people are here with a purpose - and that is to get qualification for future employment (plus actually gain some skills at the same time). Social life is made by the students for the students. Even the tutoring is predominantly done by students (albeit generally post-grad students).

First year is mainly when you acclimatise to the change, scrape by in your subjects, complain about accommodation and get very drunk.

WoollyRedHat

All first years get thrown into the lake on the first day of freshers week. It's a ritual kind of thing, sorts the tough from the rest

You don't hear about it because they don't want to scare off freshers... I just hope that swan isn't about when they do it this time round, I hear it gets pretty hungry around September.

beardedmaster

Having also just finished my first year in UCD, I really honestly gotta say it has fairly unreal.

I can't think of anything more to suggest other than what others have said - get to know people!!! Really, do your best just to acquaint yourself with people.... and as many as you can! You can do this by simply chatting to folks in the lectures/tutorials/labs/seminars, whatever!
If you're doing a course that has quite a small class, it is true that it's easy to make friends quickly, but it's just as easy in large classes. For instance, I'm doing Science and there's 380ish of us altogether, but that really doesn't stop you from just getting to know folks... I'd say I'd know at least 75% of folks now, at least. One thing you GOTTA do is get to know your class reps. Not for getting free stuff, but simply because it's another great way to know a bunch of people, because they often end up knowing a crazy amount of folks.

Joining (and participating) in clubs and societies and stuff is also a huge thing, and when people say they're going to the SU Bar afterward practise/meeting/training for a pint, tag along! The social aspect of a society can be even more rewarding than what the society does itself, and joining in on trips away or anything is a must.
By Christmastime, or shortly after, no matter what time of day, I couldn't walk from the shop in Merville to the Science Hub without meeting someone I know, and considering the sheer volume of people that go to UCD, seeing a friendly face so often really makes the place that much sounder!

Dbstf

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

All first years get thrown into the lake on the first day of freshers week. It's a ritual kind of thing, sorts the tough from the rest

You don't hear about it because they don't want to scare off freshers... I just hope that swan isn't about when they do it this time round, I hear it gets pretty hungry around September.

That swan sounds dangerous lol and i hope its a sunny day xD wouldnt mind a swim (if it was true) haha

off.the.walls

My first year

Got laid alot
some guy got a std (not me)
Another guy shattered his knee cap
went surfing in bundoran
sim cards were swllowed
the vom was projectile
it was the most fun i've ever had!

fabregas4cesc

the lake's not that cold u'll get over it