Yay For York (University of York in general)

Member Name: 87degrees

Product:	University of York in general
Date:	23/03/06 (1607 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant societies, good teaching, lots of support

Disadvantages: 60's concrete block buildings, lake can be smelly in the summer

I'm in my second year studying at York and I'm loving it. It wasn't my first choice, but I'm very happy being there. I'm enjoying the course (well, some of the lectures aren't brilliant) and the social life if great.

~ General Information ~

The university was founded in 1963 and had only 200 students. Now, there are about 10000.

Chancellor- Greg Dyke
Vice-Chancellor- Brian Cantor
Website- www.york.ac.uk
Email address for applicants- admissions@york.ac.uk for undergraduate study.
clearing@york.ac.uk for those applying for undergraduate study using clearing
graduate@york.ac.uk as the address suggests, for those applying for graduate study.

~ The Campus ~

York is situated on its own campus, just a little more than half an hour's walk from the centre of town and with a very good bus service. One of the things I like is that, walking anywhere on campus, I'm bound to see someone that I know. It forms a nice, friendly community.

There is an artificial lake built in the centre of the campus, with little offshoots spreading everywhere. I've been told that it's there for drainage, to prevent the campus being fairly swamp-like. It's alright most of the year, but in summer, some of the areas around biology smell. Some areas are extremely pretty. It's just a problem that most of the buildings in central campus were built in the 60's and are hideous.

Originally, it was designed so that it would take no longer than ten minutes to get between lectures, even if they were on opposite ends of the campus. However, the university has grown since then. It's still possible for the most part.

~ Reaching the campus ~

For those arriving by train, the number 4 bus leaves from right outside the station. The 'university' in big letters on the front should be a dead give away. There are three stops that are convinient for the university, but its the last two that are the most common. Under library bridge (so called because its a bridge next to the library), a large number of people get off here. The stop is directly under a big bridge across the road. Or, if you're a little unsure, you can keep going one stop further to the end of the line. This stop is just across the road from Derwent college.

By car, the university is well-signed. From the centre of York, you'll want to head to Hull Road, A1079, and then turn right onto University Road which runs straight through the campus. If you miss this turning, it's not the end of the world. Keep going until a large roundabout with a B&Q next to it and turn right. From out of York, its probably best to come along the A64 and then turn off onto Hull Road, A1079. Keep going until the roundabout next to B&Q and then turn left.

From the B&Q roundabout, go straight on until you reach a slightly misshapen roundabout and turn right. You're now on University Road. This goes through the campus and the central carpark is just off this road.

~ The Colleges ~

There are seven colleges. These aren't anything like those in Oxford and Cambridge. They're only really for first year accomodation and for sports.

Derwent - This is the college I'm in. The rooms aren't brilliant, but they're not the worst either. The kitchens are small, so you'll find yourself fighting over who gets to use the Baby Bellings (tiny, poor quality ovens.)

James - The accomodation is new and very nice, with large kitchen and good bedrooms. If you go on open day, this will be the college you'll get taken round. Despite having nice rooms, this college doesn't have its own bar.

Alcuin - Like James, the rooms are new and nice. This college is rather more on the outskirts of campus than James though, but not too much.

Langwith - Very like Derwent. The rooms and kitchens aren't great, but the aren't the worst.

Vanbrugh - I've not actually been in any of the Vanbrugh rooms. I think they're similar to Derwent and Langwith. They're certainly not the nice new ones.

Goodrick - This college has the reputation for the worst accomodation. This is largely the fault of C-block, which was recently dubbed 'cell block c'. It's truly terrible. They do have a good college spirit though, if only because the rooms are so awful that they have to spend their time outside them, getting to know each other.

Halifax - The rooms are very nice. I had a friend here who's kitchen was about three times the size of mine, despite the fact there were less people living in her house. The downside is that this college is a short walk from the main campus. It does have facilities, such a pizza place, bar and launderette, but the distance is a problem.

There's also Wentworth, but this is a graduate college. As such, I don't really know much about it.

~ The Facilities ~

There are laundries in most of the colleges which can be accessed by anyone, though a couple have been closed now since the university is building new accommodation with built in laundries. There are a couple of cash points scattered round as well as two at market square. This is a little group of shops including a book shop, small supermarket (but you'll be better off joining up with other people and doing a group online shop from Tesco), a stationary shop and a few others. Your Shop sells snacks, food, stationary, cards, a few electrical goods and a variety of things that are extremely useful such as flannels and toothbrushes in case you've forgotten them.

There's also Your Books, which is the campus, second-hand book shop. It's much cheaper than Blackwells, the other bookshop, and very likely to have what you're after. Because lecturers tends to recommend the same books every year, Your Books buys them from the students who did that module last year and sells them to those doing it this year.

There are a few restaurants, but none of them are brilliant. Vanbrugh has been done up recently and does a nice carvary most lunch times, but the rest of the food isn't great. About the only thing that's worth eating at the Rodger Kirk Centre are the jacket potatoes, since even they can't mess them up. You can usually get a good dinner of fish and chips on a Friday, but otherwise it's dubious as to whether there'll be anything nice on the menu. Most of the restaurants are closed on a Sunday, so you'd better hope your kitchen isn't too terrible. Opening times for these can be found at www.york.ac.uk/commercialservices/termopening.html

There are computer rooms around the campus that are open all hours. There's one computer room by each college and it seems that they are always upgrading the computers in one lab or another. The Langwith computer room has recently been extended, with a new load of really fast computers. They can sometimes fill up so you might have to wait a few minutes to get a computer, or you can walk to another room and see if there's space. Next to the computer rooms in most colleges are small, study rooms. These just have tables and chairs but are a nice place to go to work because everyone else in there is being quiet and getting on with things, so you don't get disturbed.

I don't go to the library that often, but the opening hours have recently been extended. I can't comment on it, since I don't have to do anywhere near as much reading as the arts students, but they always seem to find what they need.

Nightline is a support line that students can call if they have problems or if they just want a chat. Its run by volunteers and has a drop-in centre near Wentworth college that anyone can just go into. The number is free to call from any internal phone on 3735. Or it can be called from anywhere on 01904 433735.

There is a university television station, but I don't think anybody actually watches it. And there is a radio station, which does get a few listeners. Its website is http://ury.york.ac.uk and you can listen online from the site. It also has a listen again feature on some shows, so that if you miss the actual broadcast, you can catch up over the next week. I'd recommend Technical Difficulties, which is on Wednesday at 9pm.

There are two campus newspapers, which seem to spend as much time being rude about the others as they do reporting the news. Still, if you're interested in journalism you might enjoy writing for them. There's also a campus magazine, YourMag, and a literary and art magazine, Word Salad and Art Chips.

~ The Teaching ~

The university has in recent years been coming very high in the league tables. In computer science its ranked with Oxbridge. You'd be best to check the league tables for your subject in particular.

It's also rated 6th out of 172 higher education centres for research. This probably isn't a great deal of interest to undergraduates, apart from the fact that universities get their money through research. If the department has a good research grants, its also going to have good facilities.

I can only really talk about my course. I'm a maths and computer science student, so I get taught by two departments. I have lectures, practicals, tutorials and seminars.

My lectures could be anywhere on campus, so I get to know the different lecture theatres very well. PX-001, in the physics building, is a really nice one, with good accoustics. It's used by the student cinema because of its size and the fact it has good screens. V-045, in Vanbrugh, is another one I'm in frequently. It's alright most of the year, but gets very stuffy in hot weather.

Some of the lecturers are extremely interesting, with well-presented materials and good use of the overhead projectors and blackboards. Others seem intent on sending you to sleep. There were two modules I had last year that were hideously boring. The lecture slides were available on the computer science network and the lecturer said nothing that wasn't written on the slides.

I think whatever university you go to, you're going to get a mixture of the two, with quite a lot in the middle. York does ask students to fill out questionaires about the teaching and I think some lecturers do take into account what's been said about them and try to improve.

We have a lot of computer science practicals in a purpose-built comp-sci building. I find these, on the whole, extremely interesting. They tend to be a lot more fun than the lectures and helpful in understanding the material. The computer science students can get into the labs any time they want, day or night, which is useful when you've got a project on.

We have seminars for our maths modules. These allow the students to ask lecturers or post grad students about areas they're struggling with and, sometimes, to get hints on how to solve assignments.

We had a tutorials last year with the computer science department. They were meant to expand our learning to things outside of our course and teach us skills like giving presentations that would be useful in later life. Personally, I didn't think they were great. However, we could go and talk to our tutors at any point if we were struggling about our course.

The departments, and I think all departments, tried to encourage students to talk to people if they needed help. All students are given a supervisor, joint honours students get two, who they can talk to about any difficulties.

Because of my course, I have a mixture of exams and open assessments. With maths, we get weekly homeworks and the best two thirds count for 10% of each module. Some of the computer science modules are assessed by projects. We're given a problem to solve and a length of time to come up with a solution, a couple of times for a short project, a couple of weeks for a longer one.

~ What Subjects are Available ~

The university has a lot of departments, covering the majority of the normal science and arts subjects. There are also joint honours degrees that are run by two deparments, such as the one I'm on: computer science and maths. You can find a list of the university departments on their website, linked to from the homepage. If you've got a specific course in mind that you want to study, you should be able to find out if it's available at York using the ucas website (I'd recommend this website if you're applying for uni anywhere).

York also has the Hull York Medical School. This is a very new medical school, which could work in your advantage. They're trying to establish themselves as a good place to study, so the students there are getting a lot of good equipment and facilities. Because it's new, everything is really up to date.

Some subjects are going to be taught better than others. If you're applying to uni, look at the league tables not just for a university in general but for the department you're interested in.

~ The Social Life ~

I'm not a great one for going out clubbing, but I know quite a lot of people who are. They have a lot of fun going out to Ziggy's in town. There are also a huge number of pubs in York and the campus bars. If you go into town, Evil Eye is worth a look. It serves a huge range of cocktails (including some non-alcoholic ones) that should be tried. They always ask for ID, even if you just want a glass of water.

All colleges except for James have their own bar and organise events that go on in them. Although these events are organised by one college, they are open to anyone at the university. There's been a huge fuss lately about reducing the opening times of the campus bar, but it looks like the change will happen despite the student's protests. It's very likely that only a couple of bars will be open most nights instead of, as it has been, them all being open daily. This is a shame, because a nice thing about having so many bars was that you'd be able to find one that was quiet.

There are a huge number of societies. I am a member of Writer's Soc, the magazine Word Salad and Art Chips, Doug Soc and Juggle Soc. Last year, I was a part of the uni pantomime. There are loads of societies about anything that can be imagined and they're easy to set up. There is Tea Soc, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Bellringing, Drama Soc, Outdoors Society, Book Soc. There are a load to do with political organisations or the academic courses. There have also been some very strange ones including Aaadvark and Lemon Fanta Society.

Joining societies is a great way to make friends. My advice would be to go to Freshers' fair and put you email address down for anything that looks vaguely interesting. Just don't pay up until you've been to a couple of meetings and decide if you like it.

~ Sports ~

There isn't a swimming pool at York, which I find annoying, but there are good facilities for plenty of other sports. The sports centre is in the process of being extended right now.

I'm not very sporty, but I am a part of the badminton club and play for the college. Most sports have inter-college matches. These aren't as serious as the university teams but are more focussed on having fun. (And winning, of course.)

There are a lot of different sports on offer, including the usual ones like netball, football and hockey. There are also clubs for parachuting, water polo, pot-holing, lacrosse and fencing. Apparently chess club also counts as a sport.

They've recently expanded the sports centre with a large sports hall. This is often known as the freezer because it's extremely cold in there. Even if you're running round, it's best to wear a jumper. I also have problems with the lighting in there; when playing badmiton it's very easy to lose the shuttle in the lights. It gives more space, but I don't like playing in the extension at all.

~ Events ~

These are many and varied (though freqently with a common theme of getting drunk, but this isn't compulsory.) Almost all societies and sports clubs organise socials. These are usually either a meal followed by a bar, or just skipping the eating and going straight to the drinking.

Freshers' Fair is an important event on the first Saturday on term. Two large buildings, the Rodger Kirk Centre and the Physics building, are filled with stands. Some of these are from professional companies, but most are from the uni's societies. The companies will have piles of freebies to try and entice people, and its generally accepted that people will take the free stuff even if their not interested. Also take a good look round at the societies and put your email address down for anything that's interesting.

All the colleges and some departments have balls at the end of term. These involve dressing up in black tie, having a nice meal and then a disco. The balls are at different locations, so you can go to several and get a different atmosphere and a different meal.

Battle of the Bands happens a couple of times a year. Some of the bands are pretty good. Some aren't. It's about what you would expect.

There are a variety of college events, though they are in fact open to people from different colleges. The names have a letter in them, so you know which college is organising them, such as Club D for Derwent and Planet V for Vanbrugh. These have a theme each time and you don't have to pay as much if you dress up in a costume to do with that theme. These events take place in college bars and involve dancing and getting drunk.

There are various plays put on by Drama Soc and concerts by the music department. I can't predict what these will be, since it will depend entirely on them from year to year. This will be the third year in which the university has had a pantomime.

Woodstock occurs near the end of the summer term. It's an outdoor concert which is a great deal of fun if its not raining. The better campus bands, ie. the ones who won Battle of the Bands, will play. There are a variety of food vans of the sort usually seen at fairs, selling greasy fried food and candyfloss. Juggle Soc are also there, entertaining people with their skills and, if we can persuade health and safety, fire juggling.

There are noticeboards all round the university that advertise other events as they're planned. They don't all involve drinking and many are still fun if, like me, you don't like alcohol.

~ The Town ~

York is a very pretty city, with lots of old buildings including Cliffords Tower and, naturally, the Minster. It can get clogged with tourists at weekends, but its a very nice place.

There are plenty of shops, including the standard ones that can be found in every city centre in the country. But York does have quaint, little streets full of unique shops that are worth a look at. Just avoid the ones selling tourist trash such as models of Big Ben and London buses. There's also a designer outlet on the outskirts of the city, but its not particularly easy to get to if you don't have a car.

There are a couple of cinemas in central York: Odeon and City Screen. Odeon is very small, but quite nice. The popcorn at City Screen is more ludicrously expensive than most other cinemas. There's also the Vue cinema, but that's a little out of town. You can get there on the number 6 bus, but it takes a fairly roundabout route.

Compared to a lot of other cities, York is safe. It has a relatively low crime rate. Even the bad areas, such as Tang Hall, are a lot better than bad areas in other parts of the country.

~ Housing ~

First year accomodation is on campus and organised by the uni. Depending on your college (Halifax tend to have room) you can apply to stay on college in your second and third year. In most colleges, there aren't many rooms available. Some third years get a place, most don't.

International students get to stay on campus if they want to with no difficulty at all.

Almost everyone in their second year lives off campus. The university have a list of landlords renting to students, so you can be sure to get a rent that lasts the length of time you want. The uni has also checked the contracts for these places, but you'd be best to read it through yourself.

The cost of the on-campus housing depends on which college your in. As could be expected, being in a nice room, such as James, would be more expensive than being in Goodrick. There are also varying lengths of rent. Some of the Halifax rooms are rented for the entire year whereas most of the others are only up until the end of the summer term. Some of the rooms are let out other the Easter holidays for conferences, so you will be expected to clear all your things out. This generally happens in Alcuin, James and some of the Derwent and Langwith rooms.

When applying for campus accomodation, you'll be able to choose the length of rent you want and you'll be fully warned if you're one of those that has to move your belongings for a holiday.

~ Overall ~

I love York Uni. I've enjoyed by time here immensely and intend to enjoy the time I've got left. I have good friends and good times and (hopefully) good grades.

It's a very good university and offers industrial placements and years abroad. It has languages for all courses that can be taken by anyone, allowing you to learn a new language as well as your subject. The staff are generally friendly.

My advice is to come and look for yourself. Come on an open day and speak to the lecturers for your course, look at what facilities are available for your subject. Your own opinion is always more important than other people's when choosing the next stage of your life.



I've made some changes, but I've published this review on Ciao under the same user name.

Summary: A good university with a nice atmosphere, but some bad buildings.