by gingerbeer on Fri Apr 25, 2003 10:58 am
Are you insane? The university isn't that great (part of the standard advice given by staff to students moving into halls of residence is 'don't lean against the widows because they aren't properly attatched to the building', and some of the departments aren't good at taking into account the fact that you're really ill, have some sort of disability or have had major personal problems when it comes to things like assessment and deadlines) and not worth it unless you have ambitions connected with the Rowett Institute.
As for the town, it's dull, and not only that, it's extremely pretentious and the general population seem to think that the world stops somewhere just south of Stonehaven. The cost of living is relatively high compared to the rest of Scotland and they have some of the most expensive public transport in the UK (believe me, I've used it, but I wouldn't want to drive there anyway because the traffic system is bizarre and complicated).
I could go on like this for a long time, but basically, Aberdeen is like a very big village, it has all the disadvantages of a city, with very few of the advantages. You might be prepared to put up with this if they had a good university, but it's nothing out of the ordinary academically and it says a lot that of all the people from my school who applied there either did it as an insurance choice or because they wanted to be near their families.
[hr]
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
-Terry Pratchett
