Why are you here?

[The Bitter Historian]

Don't worry, not a philosophical question, more a curiousity.

If you're currently studying at St Andrews, why did you decide to do so? And why did you pick the subject you did? Be honest; 'because it was easy' is a perfectly legitimate reason. I'm just curious as to why the current bunch of students are actually here at all.

I'll start - I'm at St Andrews because I wanted to go to Scotland and this was my favourite place after doing the various open day tours. And I do history because for some strange reason, I'm absolutely in love with, er, learning about history. Dreadfully unfashionable and I have no idea what I'll actually do with a degree in history, but I'm enjoying the degree.

... next?

[hr]

http://bitterhistorian.blogspot.com

Life. St Andrews. Budgeting. Some history. Mostly bitterness.

[Bizarre Atheist]

I'm here by happy accident. After a lower-sixth flirt with being a lazy git, I bucked my ideas up and worked hard for a bank of As at AS-level, eventually applying to read English at Cambridge with Linguistics in the second tripod. My identical twin brother applied for Maths and Philosophy at Oxford. As you may have guessed by now, despite identical A-levels, he got his place and I didn't get mine.

Anyway, St Andrews was the only other one of my six choices I actually wanted to go to. Cambridge rejected me on New Year's Eve 2004, and St Andrews finally offered me a place in March 2005 - in the interim I had been vaguely planning a gap year.

Anyway, since St Andrews wanted me and I wanted St Andrews it seemed the logical choice, despite being a good 500 miles from home.

I study English with Linguistics here because I love them both dearly, and recently dropped Italian (which seemed like a good idea at the time) and took up 1st year Scots History for a chuckle.

It may seem like sour grapes (which it might be a little bit), but I'm so glad I'm here instead of Oxbridge or on a gap year.

[hr]

[Edited for English unbecoming of an English undergraduate]

[Jen the Phantom Hobbit of]

I'm here cos I wanted to live in Scotland and hate big cities and love the countryside and old towns, and I'm doing the course I am cos it's my fav subject (ancient history and archaeology) that I studied in my free time before I did it here. Simple really.

[hr]

The voices in my head tell me I'm not insane ... but everyone else does.

[theonlyone]

Im here as i dont want to pay crappy tutition fees in england, and i didnt want to go to the local uni, and ed has a crap physics department. so that left it between glasgow and here. glasgow was a little too big and scary for me. and i feel in love with st andrews when i came on the open days!! its a beautiful town, with fantastic views, i love the sea.


and why am i doing physics, well i know why i choose it, it was between that and history, and i thought i would have more chance of a job with physics. also being stubborn, i once said that i would do a physics degree when i was like 13....and so i had to do it....

but now why am i doing physics, well im a little unsure....

[orudge]

I'm here because I was looking for universities with computer science courses, I didn't particularly want to leave Scotland, and ideally I was looking for somewhere I didn't need Higher Maths to get into, having ballsed that up the previous year. I went down to visit it, and a few other unis, and St Andrews seemed to fit the bill.

[hr]

http://www.owenrudge.net/
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37103734

[Telinar]

Partly because of the course (Geoscience originally, but now Physical Geography and Geoscience, which is virtually the same...but with better scenery ), which seemed to be excellent and partly because I fell in love with the town when I came. I'm from a rural area anyways and this was a step up without going to a massive city. Plus it was between here and Aberdeen, and having lived near Aberdeen for 6 years, I remembered how grey it was......

[hr]

http://telinar-beln.deviantart.com or http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37105240

[Han]

I'm here because I knew I wanted to go to a Scottish uni and it was between Edinburgh and here - the small size of the town clinched it for me.

I study classical studies and latin because it turned out I actually quite like my language (I was just going to do a degree in classical studies) and I was good at latin and greek at A level. Also I didn't have the guts or confidence to try to get into drama school/a drama course and although they never said it I could tell that my parents would be happier with me doing an "academic" subject first before going into theatre (which I intend to do once I finish here).

Also I do actually find classics fascinating and am really enjoying my degree, for the most part.

Quoting The Bitter Historian from 16:41, 9th Feb 2007
Don't worry, not a philosophical question, more a curiousity.

If you're currently studying at St Andrews, why did you decide to do so? And why did you pick the subject you did? Be honest; 'because it was easy' is a perfectly legitimate reason. I'm just curious as to why the current bunch of students are actually here at all.

I'll start - I'm at St Andrews because I wanted to go to Scotland and this was my favourite place after doing the various open day tours. And I do history because for some strange reason, I'm absolutely in love with, er, learning about history. Dreadfully unfashionable and I have no idea what I'll actually do with a degree in history, but I'm enjoying the degree.

... next?

[hr]

http://bitterhistorian.blogspot.com

Life. St Andrews. Budgeting. Some history. Mostly bitterness.

[lauraelizabeth]

I'm here because St And has such a great reputation. And also, my parents used to bring me here when I was little and we couldn't afford big holidays abroad. So it's like a home from home

[harmless loony]

Bizarre Atheist - c'mon dude give them your real reason! You were one of the lucky few to get a tour around the place by the wonderful Ambassador (moi) and on seeing me you knew you wanted to come to St Andrews and by my biatch......

*ahem*

Anyhow - I ended up in St A rather by accident. I put St A on my UCAS application to fill up the 6th space. I didn't intend to go, heck I didn't even make it to a Visiting Day.

Meanwhile my tutors at college mixed my A Level grades up with someone else's on my UCAS application so instead of having my real predicted grades on there I actually had 5 Ds.....It was only when Southampton Uni pointed out the odd predicted results compared to my AS level results (and also after I had already had straight rejections from 3 unis did we realise what had happened....)

By then it was too late - St Andrews were told my real predicted grades and duly offered me a place.

Never regretted the way things turned out!

[pinkymoo]

I am here because I got in. I applied to 5 unis, saw st andrews, and thought, I will try for the craic. And they let me in. So i did. Worst decision of my life i think!! But just because its so small. And im not a small town sorta person!!

[Hex]

Oxford reject.

[Garnet]

I'm here as I wanted to study IR and Spanish, and the uni has one of the top Spanish departments in the UK (no.2 i think) but that doesn't really matter now as i changed my degree to IR and psychology which ironically enough is what I rejected when I applied through UCAS in my gap year (i was also sitting exam for spanish higher at this time), I put Strathclyde as my first choice and ST Andrews as my second. I got a conditional offer from strathclyde and an unconditional from St Andrews but before I had my exam results i decided i wanted to change but unfortunately I wasn't allowed as St Andrews Uni wouldn't let me, which was really stupid as if I had failed or got a C in my exam I would have got a place, but I got an A and so I had to go to Strathclyde. I didn't really do so well at strathclyde uni, for a number of reasons mainly working 26 hours which obviously was stupid and messed up my chances, but there were other reasons, so i applied again through UCAS and I filled about 4 choices with a combination of IR and Spanish. I was confident that I would get an offer as I done so two years previous but gradually all but one was rejected and I was sure that I was going to be rejected for the fourth but luckily I was not .

Went a bit of tangent telling how i got here but now I am here as the IR department and Psychology department are really good and I enjoy both subjects. I think the small town did seem charming to me when I came on visiting day but it's not making me stay now, I do sometimes wish I had went to Glasgow or Edinburgh Uni, but they don't do IR, so there's not really an option of transfering.

[hr]

so alive, so full of fire and music!

[Bizarre Atheist]

Quoting harmless loony from 20:55, 9th Feb 2007
Bizarre Atheist - c'mon dude give them your real reason! You were one of the lucky few to get a tour around the place by the wonderful Ambassador (moi) and on seeing me you knew you wanted to come to St Andrews and by my biatch......

Conceded.

[hr]

http://www.race2paris.co.uk
http://standrews.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204763785

[nighteyes]

I am here because I wanted to study Psychology as a good Uni with a great department and still stay in Scotland. St Andrews fills both criteria and also has the advantage of not wanting Higher maths(That ruled out Edinburgh.) and is a good distance from Glasgow. (I could not have stayed at home. I dont know how people can go to Uni and remain living with their parents if they have a choice.)

[hr]

i didnt say i was consistant, just right!

[Frank]

Who are you?
What do you want?
Why are you here?
Where are you going?


I'm here because I was destined to see Babylon 5 here.


Well, aside from that...

It was originally a tie between here (a lovely place, and home of our dear Bruce Sinclair), Edinburgh (a place I love, and have spent alot of time in) and Aberdeen, where I essentially fell in love with the University there when I arrived!

However, in spite of all this, Aberdeen was knocked off the list. Physics(and Astronomy), Maths and Comp Sci simply weren't as good there as they were here. I'd love to study further up there, but not this time!

So, it was narrowed to Edinburgh and St Andrews. Spoke to everyone I could on the topic, really going the whole hog. All my friends recommended Edinburgh, but something niggled about it all.

(I should mention I was fortunate enough to get six unconditional offers from five Universities [Edinburgh twice: once for Astrophysics, once for AI & MAths], so had a free pick of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow, Dundee or Aberdeen)

So, as everything progressed, as it tends to, I got precisely no further on it at all! Then, a few days before the acceptance deadline I sat in the school library and thought: "Damn, St Andrews kicked the shit out of Edinburgh" with respect to both open days and my general impressions of it.

And, here I am. The very next day I accepted coming to St Andrews, and I haven't, to my knowledge, regretted it since!

Well, apart from Frieder Koenig and Colin Campbell's courses...but that's not the University itself...

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."

[maenad]

There aren't that many universities of good academic standing which offer Classics courses for people who aren't advanced in either language. I didn't get into my first choice and didn't have a clear second, so visited the rest and St Andrews came out top. I nearly went to Edinburgh because I thought I'd prefer a city, but in the end this was the only uni which seemed to care whether I came here or not.

[hr]

Tommy can you hear me?

[Mehmsy]

Because St. Andrews has the biggest optical telescope of its kind in the UK, and I want to become an astronomer.

Also because I've lived in capital cities my whole life, and wanted a change of ambience. Finally, because it's a seaside town.

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37106593

[Das Feuer liebt mich]

I actually never expected to get into St Andrews, I just applied to it for a laugh. But yeah I'm here now. Also I'm doing theology coz even though all I did was science and maths at school I failed Advanced Higher Physics and got really depressed about it so I just decided to do something completely different; bu it is good fun

[DrAlex]

I'm here because a. I knew that despite my family history, I simply would not have fit in in the US, b. my sister went here so I was very familiar with the town and knew that I liked it, and c. I was rejected by Edinburgh (in retrospect, thank god).

[hr]

The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[Freaker]

I needed a sixth choice to finish my UCAS application and looked at a map of the UK and its universities that was hanging in the university office at my high school (it has to be said that I am from Germany, and said high school was in Norway, so I had little clue of what universities are any good, or whereabouts they are.) St Andrews was the only name I hadn't yet applied to/decided not to apply to that still rang a bell. Must have been because of the prince .

In the end, my two top choices didn't like me enough, and it was a choice between LSE, Edinburgh, Wolverhampton and here. The good reputation for IR and the fact that it's a small place made me decide for St Andrews - a choice I haven't regretted making, but would not necessarily make again in the future.

[hr]

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.