Where students and squirrels live in harmony (Keele University in general)

Member Name: bessieboo

Product:	Keele University in general
Date:	19/10/08 (213 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Squirrels

Disadvantages: Admin

Keele is my university, and although I absolutely love it here, there are certain things which annoy me a little.

Although the buildings in the centre of campus are quite ugly, the surrounding area is amazing. This afternoon I went for a jog, passing through the clockhouse and down into the countryside without even needing to set foot on a proper tarmac road. The Clockhouse and Keele hall are easily the best thing about Keele bar the squirrels, which deserve a paragraph to themselves.

They're adorable! They will run under your feet, so if you're carrying folders in your arms they might trip you up. When I arrived back a few weeks ago I had an unsettling feeling that something was wrong, and I eventually attributed it to the lack of squirrels. They have returned though!

An annoying thing, though, is communication between students and administration. They don't tell you ANYTHING! Want to know when term ends? You'll have to SEARCH GOOGLE for the answer to save you trawling through the impossible Keele website.

Obviously departments vary, and as most students take a dual honors course, you'll have two very different levels of involvement with your course leaders. For one of my subjects, the course leader is a very lovely lady who greets you by name, and writes it INDIVIDUALLY onto any mass correspondance she sends out. On the other hand, I couldn't name the course leader for my other subject, and last year in my exam I found that I hadn't been told the format of the exam would change from the first semester, meaning I spent the summer convinced I had failed. Somehow, I didn't.

The library can be quite noisy, but the silent study areas are great, because you can sit almost in private during less busy hours.

The halls vary widely. My last block in Horwood will be demolished in a few years, and was pretty bad. I even had mould grow in my cupboards. However, for the same price I'm now sitting in a beautiful room in Lindsay overlooking a view of the hills and motorway. I love it :) As a general rule, Horwood looks like a council estate and everyone thinks people who live at Lindsay, Holly Cross and The Oaks are posh. Hawthornes people are strange creatures who have to walk for hours to get to lectures and Barnes is... well its just Barnes... Oh, and the launderette at Lindsay is a source of constant irritation for me, yet at Horwood there were massive sofas and a flatscreen telly no one knows how to switch off.

Its actually NOT in the middle of nowhere as Keele students will have you believe. We're liars! There's an easy bus route into Newcastle-Under-Lyme and Hanley (Stoke on Trent City Centre) which costs the same no matter how far you go! With a student 10 trip ticket its just over a pound to go from the student union to horwood (round the corner) or from the student union to hanley bus station. Which is just madness! But it works out quite cheap if you're willing to walk home, and its not exactly hard! Its a sweet little village campus, with the benefits of being near a city.

There are a massive amount of international students, so if you need a sofa to crash on in hong kong, canada or japan then you'll find it here, and yesterday I learnt the word for squirrel from my german friend. (Eichornchen)

So if you're thinking of coming here, come and have a look round. We're nice!

Summary: Annoying, but worth it