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Anyone else counting down the days til they leave this sh*thole?
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Which of the 11 libraries are you talking about?stolenwine wrote: »It's really embarrassing to go to Trinity and walk around their library, the place is bloody spectacular.
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Warning:stream of consciousness style of writing i.e. jumbled mess of words that are flying from my head
I am in second Comm. I dislike UCD but it does have its good points.
People talk about UCD having a great atmosphere and social life. The great atmosphere is the single biggest load of bollix I have ever heard. The atmosphere here rivals that of Old Trafford on a wet Saturday afternoon when the mighty reds are playing a pointless match versus some minnows(liverpool or someone). The atmosphere is more Landsdowne Rd. than Thomond Park.Yes the social life is great but the social life is only "great" because it is proportionate to the amount of people. If you can't find something to do when you are surrounded by thousands of people well then its not the college or its people that are at fault.
The Administration side of things are a shambles. No one know anything and anyone that does know anything is impossible to get to talk to and when you do get to talk to them there is some SOP excuse along the lines of "yes we realise there is a problem but this is all new to us too"-This is a joke and I am surprised no one has kicked up more of a fuss than there is, although I am not surprised that anyone who did kick up a fuss was a)not listened to and b)not heard of.
We have no pool. Personally my biggest grievance as petty as it may be. I find it very hard to believe that a college that prides itself on its size and standards in education, sports and research does not have a swimming pool. Every other half arsed college in this shambolic country has a pool.
The food in the student bar is shít and overpriced. I tried to find a better word to describe the poor quality of food but my thesaurus is broken and well shít just sprang to mind. It is always chips, always goujons, always that same curry sauce. OK so they do "turkey and ham" and "roast beef" but even this is tripe. Fortunately the food I have eaten from the new evening menu seems to be ok. Restaurant food is terrible as are all the University sponsored places. The only places with decent food are the franchises but of course these are hyper over-priced for someone on a student budget.
Drink on campus is also overpriced. There are no concessions, deals with drinks companies or sponsors like every other student bar in the country. We occasionally get some sort of promotion but one has to feel that this is when the manager has over counted his stock and decides he is feeling generous.
Come to think of it, everything is dearer than it should be.
The place is full of cliques. This is in part a major factor in the serious decline in student morale in the college. The college is known for its high density of the famed and much reproduced d4head. Personally I find them affable and friendly. I also fine "boggers" to be the same, as I do "Rockers" and "nerds" and whatever other cliques there are. I do think though that the d4 stigma has a lot to answer for the lack of morale.
Our Societies however deserve a good mention, they do some good work and generally make the place more bearable. They are unfortunately constricted by the rulings of a draconian Societies Officer. I don't like him because he wouldn't allow a poker soc this year but he is also the man who canceled last years mystery tour on the day it was meant to happen.
tired now, sick and hallucinating, add(rant) more later.0 -
Theresalwaysone wrote: »Warning:stream of consciousness style of writing i.e. jumbled mess of words that are flying from my head
I am in second Comm. I dislike UCD but it does have its good points.
People talk about UCD having a great atmosphere and social life. The great atmosphere is the single biggest load of bollix I have ever heard. The atmosphere here rivals that of Old Trafford on a wet Saturday afternoon when the mighty reds are playing a pointless match versus some minnows(liverpool or someone). The atmosphere is more Landsdowne Rd. than Thomond Park.Yes the social life is great but the social life is only "great" because it is proportionate to the amount of people. If you can't find something to do when you are surrounded by thousands of people well then its not the college or its people that are at fault.
The Administration side of things are a shambles. No one know anything and anyone that does know anything is impossible to get to talk to and when you do get to talk to them there is some SOP excuse along the lines of "yes we realise there is a problem but this is all new to us too"-This is a joke and I am surprised no one has kicked up more of a fuss than there is, although I am not surprised that anyone who did kick up a fuss was a)not listened to and b)not heard of.
We have no pool. Personally my biggest grievance as petty as it may be. I find it very hard to believe that a college that prides itself on its size and standards in education, sports and research does not have a swimming pool. Every other half arsed college in this shambolic country has a pool.
The food in the student bar is shít and overpriced. I tried to find a better word to describe the poor quality of food but my thesaurus is broken and well shít just sprang to mind. It is always chips, always goujons, always that same curry sauce. OK so they do "turkey and ham" and "roast beef" but even this is tripe. Fortunately the food I have eaten from the new evening menu seems to be ok. Restaurant food is terrible as are all the University sponsored places. The only places with decent food are the franchises but of course these are hyper over-priced for someone on a student budget.
Drink on campus is also overpriced. There are no concessions, deals with drinks companies or sponsors like every other student bar in the country. We occasionally get some sort of promotion but one has to feel that this is when the manager has over counted his stock and decides he is feeling generous.
Come to think of it, everything is dearer than it should be.
The place is full of cliques. This is in part a major factor in the serious decline in student morale in the college. The college is known for its high density of the famed and much reproduced d4head. Personally I find them affable and friendly. I also fine "boggers" to be the same, as I do "Rockers" and "nerds" and whatever other cliques there are. I do think though that the d4 stigma has a lot to answer for the lack of morale.
Our Societies however deserve a good mention, they do some good work and generally make the place more bearable. They are unfortunately constricted by the rulings of a draconian Societies Officer. I don't like him because he wouldn't allow a poker soc this year but he is also the man who canceled last years mystery tour on the day it was meant to happen.
tired now, sick and hallucinating, add(rant) more later.
sometimes you talk pure bs steve but i really don't care0 -
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I couldn't disagree any more, I love UCD. Why do people harp on about the architecture so much? If you want to see nice buildings f uck off to some quaint village in the sticks and jerk off over the scenery all day, UCD is a centre of learning, you are there to learn. The people in my experience are, for the most part, easy to get along with and it has plenty of sports clubs and societies which cater for even the most bizzare interests. If you don't like UCD you are the problem0
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I hope the above wasnt directed at me? I do like UCD, just saying it could be better.0
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I'm a bit annoyed at the IT infrastructure, and find it weird that there are so many non-functional PCs in the computer rooms, especially Science & AgSci. Can't someone just re-image them? The first time one of those old Dells went in to "leaf blower mode" I thought it was my fault, but it wasn't. And why do some refuse to accept your logon? The network connections look OK, I can see packets hitting the ports...
By way of comparison... the Trinity College "Bitch/Moan" thread on boards.ie has over 6000 posts, and is on page 308 at time of writing. :rolleyes: That doesn't include threads about the crazy old Japanese guy who terrorized TCD students for years, but died recently. Do we have one of those at UCD? The old homeless guy who hangs around the Physics building (of all places) seems harmless enough.
My main gripe: water! We shouldn't be paying for it, hot or cold. I can make a better cup of tea, with a teabag and a sugar lump, than anything served up anywhere on campus.0 -
The way I heard the story, the "draconian" society officer asked to audit the poker soc accounts, and they decided to shut down instead. And seeing as it doesn't seem to have stopped them having poker games on campus is it really such a big deal?Theresalwaysone wrote:he wouldn't allow a poker soc this year
It's fun the first time?pretty*monster wrote:sat behind a stand in the freshers tent three years in a row (it's only fun the first time)0 -
The way I heard the story, the "draconian" society officer asked to audit the poker soc accounts, and they decided to shut down instead. And seeing as it doesn't seem to have stopped them having poker games on campus is it really such a big deal?
You are right Raphael and I wouldn't deny you that but
He knew full well we couldnt give accounts when he was asking, I explained to him that the outgoing soc didnt keep accounts and this wasnt our fault. The reason the soc didn't keep accounts afaik is because there were no expenditures or earnings. All we needed was chips(taken from previous socs) a table (free) a place to play SU centre (free). If I was to give him accounts I would of had to fabricate them and I refused to do that.
Also, there was something about not giving out money as prizes on campus which imo is ridiculous as every other College has a poker soc and they do the same. He wanted us to give out vouchers and other non-monetary prizes which to anyone who plays poker and understands the game is insulting.
He see's it as gambling. Poker players and anyone who has any knowledge of statistics and probability knows that it is a game of decision making and information gathering but there is no convincing some people and I wouldn't even try.
And about the current games in the SU. It was a tournament, a bit of fun and now even that 1 table game has been shut down. We are not even allowed use our own student centre. Although this is not that relevant, I don't really mind.
I do know though that the SVP auditor wanted to run a poker fundraiser this year, somehow I believe that would have been allowed. But sure.... thats not poker.0 -
Ah, interesting. Hadn't heard that side of the story before. You really got shafted by the outgoing committee, it seems. Not keeping accounts just because you don't have money in or out is stupid, frankly. Pretty **** situation for you though.
And the money thing is a bit of a pain, I know gamesoc ran up against the same obstacle when we were looking into running poker. Best solution we came up with was take the pot, buy an all4one voucher and give it to the winner the next day, which is sadly lacking.
With respect to him seeing it as gambling - it is. It's both that and what you said it is - Just because it's not a game of chance (which having lost a stastically improbably amount of poker games I can attest to personally), doesn't mean it's not gambling.0 -
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Ah, interesting. Hadn't heard that side of the story before. You really got shafted by the outgoing committee, it seems. Not keeping accounts just because you don't have money in or out is stupid, frankly. Pretty **** situation for you though.
And the money thing is a bit of a pain, I know gamesoc ran up against the same obstacle when we were looking into running poker. Best solution we came up with was take the pot, buy an all4one voucher and give it to the winner the next day, which is sadly lacking.
With respect to him seeing it as gambling - it is. It's both that and what you said it is - Just because it's not a game of chance (which having lost a stastically improbably amount of poker games I can attest to personally), doesn't mean it's not gambling.
I would not call the man draconian if I did not have good reason.
Yes, we got hurt a bit by the outgoing commitee but the committee before them didnt keep detailed accounts either. It comes with the territory and before last year it was a "we leave him alone if he leaves us alone" sort of thing and then things changed.
Giving vouchers for prizes in games where the implements or objects of the game have no monetary value i.e. DandD or Warcraft or whatever it is Gamesoc do (excuse my ignorance and dont take it as a dig cos its not meant to be) is not nearly as bad as giving vouchers for a game that people a)directly associate with money and b)are given so many chips i.e. 10,000 or whatever for their 10euro buy in. The legality of tournament poker is murky and not clear cut but it is so popular that every second pub has a game now as well as the card rooms and some other places i.e. function rooms etc.
Us giving out vouchers would have been stupid and would've closed the soc just as quick as butler/we did (depending on stance).
As for the gambling aspect, Yes I see where you, he, most of the US congress are coming from but in the long run (a concept hard for so many to understand...even me) its about decision making. Consistently right decision making leads to winning more in th long term.It is not gambling in the same category as say, blackjack, roulette, horse racing. In them areas you have little or no control over your bet, in poker you have much more control.
FWIW I think him not allowing a pokersoc, given the need for one, the popularity, the handiness of us being able to run fundraising events for his beloved SVP is ridiculous and stupid.0 -
No offence taken, it was actually when we were trying to run poker as i said, that we were considering vouchers, but decided against it for much the same reasons as you said.
Honestly, I don't think he's quite the monster you're making him out to be, he is bound by rules as well, and one of the rules all socieities need to obey is that their accounts have to be made available to the societies officer on request. But on the other hand, I can see where he might have been harsh, he could have tried to resolve the issues in a better way, but instead just went for the sledgehammer where a chisel could have been used.0 -
Ya cant use a chisel when ya've got fat stubby hands.
And Im not calling him fat Im saying that he knows no other way and its not his fault. lateral thinking and rationality are clearly not his attributes.
Anyway, its been done to death. He even cancelled our weekly 1table games. bad man.0 -
Ok, brace for a wee bit of a rant!
If you are one of the posters who moans and b1tches about "the d4 infestation", you need to shove it up your ass. I mean seriously, the whole Holden Caulfield "wow is me" bull only goes so far. Why dont people talk to you?! Its cause you're the guy/girl who sits in their ivory white tower and judges everyone else. Get over yourself and enjoy evenings in. You have alot of "strictly come dancing" in your near future.
Ucd has its flaws (some of which annoy me as much as every other student) but adapt to them. Besides, everyone hates a moaner........0 -
Deleted User wrote: »Ok, brace for a wee bit of a rant!
If you are one of the posters who moans and b1tches about "the d4 infestation", you need to shove it up your ass. I mean seriously, the whole Holden Caulfield "wow is me" bull only goes so far. Why dont people talk to you?! Its cause you're the guy/girl who sits in their ivory white tower and judges everyone else. Get over yourself and enjoy evenings in. You have alot of "strictly come dancing" in your near future.
Ucd has its flaws (some of which annoy me as much as every other student) but adapt to them. Besides, everyone hates a moaner........
Did you read my rant post? Obviously not. Go read and then return.0 -
Theresalwaysone wrote: »Did you read my rant post? Obviously not. Go read and then return.
Though I got a C- in honours English 2 years ago, I still have basic comprehension skills. I did read your Joycean post and thats why I didnt target you. Yes Ucd is full of cliques, but Im afraid this isnt a Star Trek eutopian society where everyone wears universal bff's bracelets. There are cliques in all circles in life, something everyone should get used to.
All I wanted to reiterate was something you did say already. The whole d4 thing just grinds my gears.......0 -
I never watched star trek but I dont think they wore bff bracelets.
I have no problem with d4's, in fact I live in d4 for college, got to college in d4. Wouldnt it be all slightly stupid if I was to "hate" them?
Anyway, sick, tired, bed time.
edit; also was it joycean cos it was long?......or boring?0 -
Maybe you didn't take part in enough extra curricular activities, socialise enough, work hard enough to get firsts and feel good about yourself or have a good attitude and genuine interest in your subject. Most people I know who came and didn't like it were moans to begin with and didn't like school and don't like working full time either
I resent that comment. In the past 2 and a half years I have joined (and played for) the ladies soccer team, did my stint in the freshers tent last september as a committee member of one of the most active societies on campus, and regularly socialise with my class and in fact am going away with about 20 of them in January on a 3 day trip. As for working hard enough to get a first? I currently have a GPA of 3.9 and am unbelievably passionate about my chosen subject. I am most certainly not 'a moan to begin with', and have absolutely no problem working hard.
It doesn't mean I can't see the bad sides of UCD and I'll thank you for not judging me to be a lazy, apathetic student who's scared of a bit of hard work and actually getting involved; I most certainly am not.0 -
I did commerce for 3 years. Had an ok time in lectuers and went to the odd class party but didnt make any good friends from the course. But I have met literally 100s of people to have a laugh with and a large number of what Id consider close friends in UCD.
There are clubs, societies and even the SU to meet people; but the best by far is if you can live on campus. It opens up a whole new world.0 -
I'm finishing off my final year of Commerce, and by and large I've had a pretty miserable time at UCD. I have had some fun and made a decent amount of friends, but I amn't very close to any of them - admittedly much of this is my own fault, I had to spend 3 hours commuting everyday because I couldn't get accom, so I never found time for many of the class parties or any of the evening club activities. I found it difficult to find any soc that really interested me or that I had time for, so UCD has been a pretty lonely experience really.
However, I'm not going to blame Hugh Brady for something that's a problem of my own creation. If I'd put in more effort I'd have had a better time, simple as. UCD is definitely what you make of it as many of the more upbeat posts in this thread will attest to.0 -
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Reading all this, I think everyone draws the same conclusions that my year head did about Transition Year when I started it, if you ask me the exact same applies to UCD.
You get out of it what you put into it.0 -
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Stepherunie wrote: »Reading all this, I think everyone draws the same conclusions that my year head did about Transition Year when I started it, if you ask me the exact same applies to UCD.
You get out of it what you put into it.
Not true, TY is just a waste of time!0 -
Stepherunie wrote: »Well i study in a state of the art building, with state of the art digital facilities and brand new equipment that any college would envy.
well i suppose if you dont have to use the library, sports facilities, administration or 'restaurants' and if you've never had to try and organise the use of one of the college many hundreds of rooms for society meetings or (god forbid) independent music practice, then yes i guess the facilites are great!Stepherunie wrote: »And have you missed the vast postering for different events and campaigns.
What do you want an active union to do????
Like there's meetings about things, we have open forums for students to turn up and give there input for what they want there union to be active on and no one shows up.....
No, i havnt missed the posters. i want an active SU to tackle the college authorities directly on a few key issues which effect students on a daily basis such as....em....library, sports facilities, administration or 'restaurants' and on the use rooms for society meetings and independent music practice. I would like the SU to concentrate on lets say...3 issues per year (besides all the accom., welfare etc) and go after the college on these and nothing else til they are secured.
I actually wasnt aware that there are open forums like you've outlined so thanks for the heads up:) however i have tried to get involved in SU matters in the past but found the people so unapproachable and cliquish that i backed off tbh.
agreed.Stepherunie wrote: »You get out of it what you put into it.0 -
Yeah, I met so many people through random stuff like helping out open days, first year orientation, outreach soc, eng soc, elec soc etc. In addition engineering is very easy to make friends in because it's small enough and everyone is together a lot that it's very easy to get to know people. You definitely get out of the place what you put in.0
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well i suppose if you dont have to use the library, sports facilities, administration or 'restaurants' and if you've never had to try and organise the use of one of the college many hundreds of rooms for society meetings or (god forbid) independent music practice, then yes i guess the facilites are great!
I set up a society, I'm a former auditor and this year the ball convenor, I know about booking rooms and we have system that we use that means we effectively get rooms booked for our events.
I use the library on an almost daily basis and whilst it's noisy in the run up to exams I have to say that the library is one of the best things about UCD, they actually listen to students and try to take on there suggestions. Yes give out about there lack of plugs by from what i heard it costs 1,000e per socket outlet to fit them retrograde - or that's how much it was for the engineering shop.
I get to admin through my programme office and course office, it can take time but i generally find them helpful enough - admittedly not great but I never said UCD was perfect!
On food elements food if you ask most is lovely and I think good value. Yes the UCD one is god awful not denying it and UCD has areas to improve upon but there are good points in most things.No, i havnt missed the posters. i want an active SU to tackle the college authorities directly on a few key issues which effect students on a daily basis such as....em....library, sports facilities, administration or 'restaurants' and on the use rooms for society meetings and independent music practice. I would like the SU to concentrate on lets say...3 issues per year (besides all the accom., welfare etc) and go after the college on these and nothing else til they are secured.
If you followed Union things (which i know a lot of people don't) Barry has in fact last week had a meeting with the services about.... use of rooms for society meetings and postering space for societies etc.
Sports facilities are being dealt with the the Students centre redevelopment, I know it's long term but you can't fix things overnight.I actually wasnt aware that there are open forums like you've outlined so thanks for the heads up:) however i have tried to get involved in SU matters in the past but found the people so unapproachable and cliquish that i backed off tbh.
There as a number about parking, one with Martin Butler about the health centre and one about the Arts block redevelopment.
Yes the SU can be a clique but go to your class rep, they represent you on council and can bring things that you want talked about to council, better yet go yourself, even just call in and chat to a sabbat about it.0 -
Whoever said I was ignorant has just reinforced what I said! To get defensive enough that you judge ME on my OPINION (heaven forbid we should have one) proves just how defensive you are about the students union. If you thought they were doing what they claim to do, you wouldn't feel the need to personally attack me the way you did. You would explain your case, not jump on me agressively! Thank you... you helped prove my point! You're clearly a very rude individual! If you don't believe me start a survey. Most students will tell you the SU are useless. And I'm tired of fighting. I've put more than enough into college. It's one slap in the face after another.
Why everyone feels the need to attack eachother is beyond me. College is hard enough as it is without this ****!!! There are problems... of course there are!! I think being crucified or personally attacked for having an opinion is ridiculous.
I'm finished with this now as I don't want to be part of something that doesn't allow a personal opinon without being attacked. I wouldn't mind but I even said I wouldn't leave UCD if I was given the choice...
Screw it! I'm done!0 -
It's fun the first time?
I think so,memory seems to record that the noise was less irritating, making the same pitch to hundreds of people seemed less soulless, living on the free sugar made me less nauseous, and doing it all with the flu (join the Philosophy Society, get a free virus) was less of a pain... on the other hand it was an awfully long time ago.0 -
Whoever said I was ignorant has just reinforced what I said! To get defensive enough that you judge ME on my OPINION (heaven forbid we should have one) proves just how defensive you are about the students union. If you thought they were doing what they claim to do, you wouldn't feel the need to personally attack me the way you did. You would explain your case, not jump on me agressively! Thank you... you helped prove my point! You're clearly a very rude individual! If you don't believe me start a survey. Most students will tell you the SU are useless. And I'm tired of fighting. I've put more than enough into college. It's one slap in the face after another.
Why everyone feels the need to attack eachother is beyond me. College is hard enough as it is without this ****!!! There are problems... of course there are!! I think being crucified or personally attacked for having an opinion is ridiculous.
I'm finished with this now as I don't want to be part of something that doesn't allow a personal opinon without being attacked. I wouldn't mind but I even said I wouldn't leave UCD if I was given the choice...
Screw it! I'm done!
Apologies, I never intended to attack you personally and tbh I don't feel that I did, Your fully entitled to your opinion of course, I was just trying to communicate what I felt was unfair/incorrect in your post.. As I said, the things you mentioned have precious little to do with the SU and are soceity activities.. It just pains to me to see their hard work go unthanked..
Oh and as for being defensive, IMO i haven't been involved long or close enough with the SU to have a personal allegiance, only close enough to see clearly the work that is done. Again, apologies for any offence caused, I just get frustrated at the level of (IMO) unjust criticism levelled at the SU0 -
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It doesn't mean I can't see the bad sides of UCD and I'll thank you for not judging me to be a lazy, apathetic student who's scared of a bit of hard work and actually getting involved; I most certainly am not.
I'm not judging- just asking! It seemed your problems with the university were very vague so I wondered could it just have been that you were personally unhappy and it was affecting your opinion of the university, like some other posters.
(3rd Arts were messed about a lot with 50:50 being announced during their 2nd year and had a suddenly increased workload so if you're doing Arts it's fairly understandable.)
Most of those problems are being ironed out though and I think some academic problems shouldn't put you off a whole college with 25,000 odd students and LOADS of things to do! Overall the courses were very similar before and after modularisation, just assessment and organisation were changed.0
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