Moving in at the University of Aberdeen

As I mentioned in my last post, I arrived at the University of Aberdeen on Saturday, September 10th. Let me fill you in on what I’ve been up to since that day!

Saturday: Move-in, pub crawl, & late-night laundry

Saturday was a busy day. When I arrived at the Aberdeen Train Station, I had to catch a bus to Hillhead Student Village which is the part of campus where my housing is located. It took about 30 minutes to get from New Town Aberdeen (the downtown part of the city) to Old Town (the area where my university is located). It was about 1:00 pm when I checked in at the main building and got the key to my dorm room. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of my room! I have a single room in a hall with about nine other students. We have our own kitchen and shared shower rooms and toilets. It’s a lot like living in a dorm at St. Olaf minus the roommate.

After I dropped my luggage off in my room, I sent a text to my housing group chat asking if anyone wanted to go shopping downtown for essentials. I still needed bedding!!!! A couple of girls showed up at my room, and within ten minutes we were on our way back downtown to buy bedding, towels, pillows, and other items that just didn’t quite fit in my luggage.

When we got back to campus, I decided to do my laundry since I had a LOT of it. It turns out that the laundry room is actually its own separate building in the center of Hillhead Village. At St. Olaf, each dorm has its own set of washers and dryers, so this was a little different. I put my clothes in the washer and headed to dinner.

I went back later to put my laundry in the dryer. As I was doing so, a girl told me “good luck… I’ve had to dry my bedding multiple times already”. Bedding is pretty heavy material, so I wasn’t too worried…

I then went out on a pub crawl with some girls from my dorm, figuring I would just pick up my laundry when I got back. We were out in New Town until about 1:30 am. Unfortunately, the buses stop running around midnight so we had planned on just taking a taxi back to campus. We called the taxi service and they said “sorry, we’re all booked up for the night”. So, we grabbed a bite to eat at the closest kebab shop and walked 57 minutes back to Hillhead.

When I got back to campus, I went straight to the laundry room to see if my clothes and bedding were dry…

They were still soaking wet.

I ended up running a total of THREE 50-minute drying cycles, but it did not help one bit. At 4:00 am, I finally gave up and dragged my wet laundry back to my dorm.

My clothes didn’t end up drying for three days.

Sunday: Pub crawl pt. 2

I didn’t do much during the day on Sunday, but Sunday night was pretty fun. My friends, Isabella and Alyssa (both third year exchange students like me), and I went out for dinner at an Indian restaurant called The Jewel in the Crown. The food was amazing! After that, we went to the first Freshers event: pub golf. I had assumed there to be some sort of mini golf involved, but in reality it was just a pub crawl race. We ended up going to three out of the five or six different places. The first was a place called Revolution, and it had lots of fancy cocktails and music (but not much dancing). The next was called Slain’s, and it was a medieval-looking pub inside an old church. Finally, we went to a nightclub called Atik where I ended up having a dance-off with some random guy. It was fun and I’m glad I went, but most of the people at these events were only 16-18 years old so we felt a little out of place. Even though there have been events at Atik every night since then, we haven’t gone back.

Monday: Orientation!!!

At 9:00 on Monday morning there was an orientation for all 300-something exchange students. Most are third year undergraduates, but there are also quite a few who are in master’s programs and law school. The first half of orientation was spent talking about things like visas, registration, and services on campus. This was all useful information, of course, but I have to say that I enjoyed the second half of orientation even more. After a “wee break”, where we were given an Irn Bro (a Scottish soda) and candy bar, we had a lesson on Doric. I learned that Scotland is a trilingual country, with the three languages being English, Gaelic, and Scots. Doric is a dialect of the Scots language and is very common in Aberdeen. A Doric phrase that I have actually seen around the city is “fit like”, which means “how are you”. If I had more time, I would take a Doric lessons. I think it would be a very fun and interesting language to learn!

Following lunch, we were given time to take a campus tour and check out the Fresher’s Fayre which consisted of all of the student organizations promoting their societies. I stopped to talk with the taekwondo, chemistry, math, and hiking societies. I definitely won’t have time to join all of them, but they sure sound fun!

On the campus tour, I met a couple of law students from Austria. They invited my friends and I to go to the campus pub with them later on in the evening, so we did! What’s funny, though, is that the Go Abroad team had actually made an announcement at orientation that morning saying that everyone should go to Bobbins (the campus pub) that evening… and then they had to send out an email saying that the pub was too full 😆. So, we went later on instead when there were less people.

Tuesday: Registration meeting & beach bonfire

I had been really excited for Tuesday because it was supposed to be the day that I would finally get to register for my classes!!!!

When I applied to this program, I had intended to take some sort of chemistry class along with humanities classes that would fulfill some of my general education requirements at St. Olaf. The international studies website at St. Olaf has a long list of courses that are pre-approved for GE credit, so I figured I would not run into any trouble finding classes that would fulfill my requirements. What I didn’t realize is that most people here only take classes within their degree. Unlike St. Olaf where we are one school with many different departments, the University of Aberdeen has a different school for each subject. This means that the course schedules are difficult to align. For example, a lecture will end at 12:00 and the next will begin at 12:00 in a completely different building across campus. So, even though there were a LOT of classes that would count for my GE credits, I had a tough time trying to figure out a schedule that would work.

Anyway, I went to my meeting Tuesday afternoon with four courses that I thought would work: real analysis, controversial questions (a philosophy class), analytical chemistry, and Jesus in history and culture (a theology class). This would have been a lot like my typical course load at St. Olaf — two STEM classes and two humanities classes — but I could tell from my tutor’s reaction that students must not do that very often here. I was questioned several times about whether I’m sure I want to take classes where essays are required and whether I’ve really taken enough math courses to do real analysis. Keep in mind, the only prerequisites for real analysis are calculus I and II, and I took those both my first year at St. Olaf. I left the meeting still not registered for any classes and feeling put down by the comments made by my tutor.

Thankfully, the day turned around when someone texted our housing group chat asking if anyone wanted to go to a beach bonfire. Alyssa, Isabella and I thought that it would be a fun way to meet new people, so we decided to go and so did about 50 other people! Turns out, whoever sent that text hadn’t realized that the bonfire was for the hiking society…. so half our building had showed up and accidentally crashed their meeting. It was quite awkward at first, but we ended up talking with a couple people and having a good time.

Wednesday: Spin class & beach (again)

I started off Wednesday morning right by attending a spin class at the Aberdeen Sports Village on campus. I was given a free membership since I am living in the university accommodation, which means I can use all of the facilities within the building (weight room, pool, sports courts, etc) and attend fitness classes for free! The spin class was only 30 minutes long with an added 15 minutes of core exercises, but WOW it was amazing!!! I burned over 300 calories and was dripping in sweat by the time I was done. I’m hoping to go to a couple classes per week because it was such a good workout and a good way to meet people.

After my spin class, I walked 30 minutes back to my dorm. I could have taken the bus, but it was a beautiful day and I wasn’t in a hurry. At about 2:00, Alyssa and I hopped on a bus and headed downtown for the afternoon. We were SO hungry, so we found the first place that we could to eat lunch.

***Side note: we do have meal cards that came with our housing, but the places on campus aren’t accepting them for some reason!!! They said that they’re getting a new system or something.

After lunch, we decided to walk to the beach since it was close. We walked along the beach collecting cool rocks and laughing about how weird we are for still thinking rocks are cool at 20 years old. I don’t know how, but it was already 6:30 by the time we got back from the beach! We grabbed some dinner with Isabella and then went to Bobbins for dessert.

It was only 10:00 when we left Bobbins, but for some reason we couldn’t find a bus that would take us back to Hillhead. We decided to walk instead. However, this meant that we would have to walk through Seaton Park which is a path through the woods with absolutely no lighting and a sign that says “do not come here at night”. My tutor had also said to never go there at night…. but we didn’t really have another choice. We figured we would be fine since there were three of us.

We started off down the cobble road. As we were passing a cemetery, the church bells started to ring. And then we passed a shop that had a creepy, robotic doll sitting in the window. It was spooky!!! Once we were to the dark part of the trail, the two people walking in front of us turned around and asked if they could walk with us. One of them was holding a badminton net, as they had just come from the gym. Apparently they had also heard not to walk alone in Seaton Park at night. So, we teamed up as a group of five and made our way through the creepy woods with our phone flashlights and a badminton net. Once we reached the well-lit area, we went our separate ways and continued back to our dorms. On the way, though, we were stopped by someone asking if we knew of any parties. This led us to stand outside talking for another whole hour. I didn’t mind… I was just planning to read my book and go to bed anyway!

I’d say that’s all for now but…..

I FINALLY FOUND OUT WHAT CLASSES I’M TAKING

My classes are:

• Controversial Questions

This is a philosophy class that discusses controversial topics such as meat-eating, censorship, bias, and moral obligations.

• Gaelic Folklore

In this class, I will learn about the traditional beliefs of the Gaels in Scotland and study their songs and stories. I took this class mostly because I want to take at least one class that is about Scotland while I’m here!

• Doric & Scots Language: An Introduction to NE Scots

I took this class because I love learning languages, and it’s a great way to learn more about Scottish culture.

• Love, Loss & Revival: Gaelic Ireland 1700 to the Present

This is a history class about how Gaelic Ireland has changed throughout recent years. I’m excited for this class because I took a history class at St. Olaf called “Modern Britain” , which studied the same time period but was generalized to all of Britain, and absolutely LOVED it. A bonus is that this class also fulfills two GEs at once 😎

Here’s what my schedule looks like:

Mondays – Doric tutorial (12-1), Love, Loss & Revival lecture (2-3)

Tuesdays – Doric lecture (11-12), Gaelic Folklore seminar (1-2)

Wednesdays – NONE

Thursdays – Controversial Questions tutorial (11-12) Controversial Questions lecture (12-1)

Fridays – Love, Loss & Revival tutorial (10-11), Controversial Questions lecture (11-12), Gaelic Folklore tutorial (12-1)

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of this VERY long post.

Until next time,

Clara