Official bitch about daily life in UL

Interviews are a pain, just so much effort, people getting nervous and panicking unnecessarily. I guess the key is just remaining calm, but it's a lot easier said than done.

I had my first ever proper interview a few weeks ago for Co-op... had a bit of an unfortunate start, as I ended up turning up late...


This was after I had listed punctuality as one of my most positive attributes :pac: (in fairness, I generally am)

There was a bit of a mix-up with the sheet with the details of my interview that I got from the co-op office. The tick for location crossed 2 boxes, and I only realised half an hour before the interview that it was actually on in town rather than in the main building. Called a taxi at 9 o clock, ended up getting stuck in traffic, and arriving a few minutes late.


Can't have been a great first impression :P interview itself went grand, I don't actually tend to panic in those situations myself, which is handy..... or maybe I just didn't have time to worry about it because I was in a bit of a rush :P

Had too ****ty interview for my (lack of) coop. One was for a company in Dublin, night before I read up on their energy sector, went in and talked about their energy sector until I was stopped and asked what did I know about the stock market and I froze. Turns out they wanted business students and they didn't know why the coop office sent them 5 science and engineering students.

Next interview was for another company in Dublin that actually wanted me. Interview went great, I had all the skills they wanted and was the only student that was trained in a programme language they used. I was a shoe in until the final question. The interview was over and we where shaking hands and saying goodbye when one of the interviewers asked me to confirm when I was available for coop.
I told them it was January to September and they just stopped. "We asked the coop office for students that where free from June to January, sorry for wasting your time".

Jester252 wrote: »

Had too ****ty interview for my (lack of) coop. One was for a company in Dublin, night before I read up on their energy sector, went in and talked about their energy sector until I was stopped and asked what did I know about the stock market and I froze. Turns out they wanted business students and they didn't know why the coop office sent them 5 science and engineering students.

Next interview was for another company in Dublin that actually wanted me. Interview went great, I had all the skills they wanted and was the only student that was trained in a programme language they used. I was a shoe in until the final question. The interview was over and we where shaking hands and saying goodbye when one of the interviewers asked me to confirm when I was available for coop.
I told them it was January to September and they just stopped. "We asked the coop office for students that where free from June to January, sorry for wasting your time".

That's fcuking ridiculous.

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Nothing says "Professional Academic Survey" more than smilies and a comic sans style font...

Good work guys! :P

And guilt tripping the students into filling it out.

Chavways wrote: »

And guilt tripping the students into filling it out.

It's kind of insane that they have to be guilt tripped. I mean it takes about 5 minutes to do all of them for five modules and the lecturers are obliged to act on the information immediately. That's absolutely brilliant, particularly given that some lecturers are absolutely ****ing chronic and shouldn't be in front of a group of students at all.

Subutai wrote: »

It's kind of insane that they have to be guilt tripped. I mean it takes about 5 minutes to do all of them for five modules and the lecturers are obliged to act on the information immediately. That's absolutely brilliant, particularly given that some lecturers are absolutely ****ing chronic and shouldn't be in front of a group of students at all.

It's an awful survey though. How can anyone accurately convey what they think about a module on a 5 point scale?

Are you happy with the facilities provided? What the f*ck does that even mean? We're in a classroom... I'd be happier if we had beanbags... do I give this 3 or 5? :P

The difficulty of the module: Satisfied/Dissatisfied

Does satisfied mean it's easy, challenging, hard? Does dissatisfied mean too easy or too hard?

How are lecturers supposed to act on the information if the information is so pointlessly vague?

wnolan1992 wrote: »

It's an awful survey though. How can anyone accurately convey what they think about a module on a 5 point scale?

Are you happy with the facilities provided? What the f*ck does that even mean? We're in a classroom... I'd be happier if we had beanbags... do I give this 3 or 5? :P

The difficulty of the module: Satisfied/Dissatisfied

Does satisfied mean it's easy, challenging, hard? Does dissatisfied mean too easy or too hard?

How are lecturers supposed to act on the information if the information is so pointlessly vague?

It's a smoke test, you get general info and use that to gain further information on a qualitative basis if there is "smoke". For example the facilities question is aimed at practicals, the facilities for some of those can be ****, if a lot of students are dissatisfied then lecturers are supposed to talk with the class and find out more.

It being quick is supposed to gain a high sample size. I reckoned most of it was clear. The difficulty question just means what it says, if you like easy modules and it's easy then you'd be satisfied, if loads are dissatisfied then it's up to the college to find out why, but in order to do that they need to find out where the problems lie.

The Open Days suck somewhat don't they?

Living in Groody, bottom floor, room pretty much adjacent to metal stairs used to access upper floors.
I swear some of the people go up them with the intention of putting their foot through the step with each step they take. No one is that heavy footed. It's noise for the sake of noise and it's really pissing me off, it sounds like there's someone at the top of the stairs just stomping in the same spot, unsure how many people live on the floors above my own but going by the noise you'd be thinking 20.
Worse still, the living room of the upstairs apartment is directly above my bedroom, so any time they have a party, I'm up til it's over as again, every step they take causes my light shade to shake...
I'm a very easygoing person, but this is 3/4 weeks of this now, started off alright but really starting to push it. On top of that there's the noise of people walking, shouting and screaming outside my window.
One more bad case within next week or so and will be complaining. Get security to circulate place during prime hours, 10-12 and 2-3.
Unfair on other students, it's a built up place, I've been woken quite a few times now by drunks who stay outside for another 30-40 minutes once their back before they go into their own places...
Have come to accept there's nothing I can do about stairs, there's cnuts out there that just want to be heard, but security should be making sure there's no drunken screaming after the 12 O Clock point, blatant ignorance and selfishness, and being drunk is no excuse.
Also cars coming in, driving around with music turned up beeping horn. We have a gate, keep it shut. Owners can rent keys to open gate and pedestrians can use side gate.
Don't care about the odd shout, squeal or laughter, so long as it's brief and the company are going somewhere, either back into their house or out, don't care so long as it's out of my earshot. #Rant

Sorry but some people around here really do my head in, and you'd expect more out of college students.