Student bashing anyone? (Sheffield Hallam University in general)

Member Name: Bilbo Baggins

Product:	Sheffield Hallam University in general
Date:	26/10/01 (371 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Uni, Easy to get in

Disadvantages: Courses underfunded

A good honest Northern uni. They'll be no student bashing here thanks but it got your attention hopefully.

Here we go another opinion. The recession is coming or in our case, seems to have just arrived. Never mind hey, you get to sit and write opinions. So I’m getting paid for my job and getting paid peanuts for writing opinions. But I like peanuts. Especially when they are roasted. They go down with a good packet of pork scratchings and them scampi fries. Anyway I digress.

I’m here to write an opinion on Sheffield Hallam and an opinion I shall write. All in all the place is a good one. It’s full of students which is the downside but the upside is that many are female. I admire female flesh but not muscle and so Sheffield Hallam is the right place for me. Getting into Sheffield Hallam is a doddle. Just get mediocre results at A levels, knob off all the other offers and point your Fiat Panda firmly in the direction of South Yorkshire. You’ll get in no sweat and won’t be disappointed. It used to be a Polytechnic, so technically it’s a technical college although the only technical things I saw were buildings going up left, right and centre. They’ve had £41 million input into modernising many parts of the university. Very technical but I was there to study German and Business so the only technology I would be using was a PC and I wouldn’t be designing them.

Most people in my position are worried about only a handful of things when they go to university. The boy / girl ratio, whether the nightlife is dazzling enough, the beer price and accommodation. Ok, some get pedantic and want to know what their courses have in store for them. I didn’t, I was just happy to get out of Glossop (see my Glossop opinion to find out why). Actually Sheffield is also a chicken town but on the rougher end of the chickenometer scale. It was a steel town, ‘was’ being the operat
ive word. It is now a layabout town. The city would I’m sure be dead as a Mammoth if it weren’t for the 25,000 students that inhabit it. Students are there to bring in to the city parent’s, taxpayers and student loan companys’ money. Students are there to waste it on buying pizzas in Tescos, keeping the local kebab shops open, fattening the wallets of the barmen and landlords and generally creating short term profit for here one day gone tomorrow businesses on Ecclesall Road. You can’t blame them for any of that. Thank them, they make the city worth living in.

It is built on 7 hills. Legend has it that these are the graves of 7 giant coal gatherers of a time long gone. Sheffield folk believe anything, the natives are a bit dumb. Nah, only joking don’t be fooled by their ‘What’s up Ducky?’ accents. The hills are actually rumoured to be 7 hills, part of the Pennine backbone of England. I’m sure that’s a much more feasible account for their existence.

I can only speak for the course I did and not any others. My experience with it was that it is fairly straightforward and definitely not as hard as most of the things you are forced at gunpoint to do in A levels. The organisation of the uni was fairly poor. Things seemed to take an eternity to happen. But don’t let that put you off, it’s easier to get deadline extensions because of it.

Going out. Going out of the front door is often a difficult challenge for many Students. Take a deep breathe, a glass of water to wash away the cannabis-infected hangover and open the door. You’ll be greeted with, if you live in a lucky area of Sheffield, a breath of fresh Pennine air. If not, you’ll die of car fume inhalation. Venture further and you’ll find a whole array of bars, cafes, clubs and pubs. The best streets by far are Ecclesall Road and West Street although the centre has a few good
places to visit. Stay away from the Jolly Buffer though . It’s a gay bar. That’s unless you are gay. Then frequent it as often as you like.

Then there are the rest of the pubs. I’d better start with the NMB, the Nelson Mandela Building. It’s the Student Union aptly named for no apt reason. I hate those arty farty names for student buildings. That’s one thing I can’t stand about students. Not all students, just some. They are, I repeat, arty farty. Not normal. Mostly nice though. It has some right cheesy nights does the NMB and the student pub under the club upstairs is a mess. But the beer is cheap and you don’t sit warbling about the state of the wallpaper when you’re three sheets to the wind do you. Having said that it’s best to be drunk in most of the ‘traditional’ pubs in Sheffield, especially on London road. There are a lot of dives. You’l lfind this out for yourself. But then there are a lot of nice renovated pubs like the Nursery Tavern, the Slug and fiddle and the other one next to Kwikfit (someone please remind me of the name of this one). They have a brilliant Karioke night, the best I’ve ever been to. If you’re not too good the DJ gets the crowd to sing ‘der da der da you’re crap, der da der da you’re crap!’ (sing to the der da der song).

I’m not one for cheese although my girlfriend drags me out to a few 70s and 80s nights like Stardust above the union. I’m also not one for dying my hair green and joining all the other tosspots at Gatecrasher. What is that all about? A generation in rebellion? I think not. A generation of idiots.

I like the ballroom at City Hall. Every month the big Blackpool tower organ pops out of the floor and we all have a waltz. No, I lie. It’s the 70s and 80s night I’m on about. There is cheese dressed up as a 70s / 80s night like Stardust (just
mentioned) and then there is quality which is also 70s / 80s night. This is to be found at City Hall. It is excellent. There is a mix of people there, students and locals and all get on well. No fights, no agro, just everyone dressed up in 70s gear poncing around on the john Travolta style coloured dance floor. I love it.

So there is Sheffield Hallam and Sheffield in a nutshell. I could go on but I won’t.

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