Mahsa's Blog

15 November 2010 ACCOMMODATION

I´ve decided to include some info about uni and lifestyle from my own prospective in my diaries which you might find helpful if you´re planning to come to Sheffield.

How to choose your accommodation in Sheffield:

Choosing an accommodation depends on many factors: the most important of which are what style of life you prefer how much you can budget. But other than these two which you can surely find out from the accommodation leaflets, I´d like to just give you some tips that I think are handy and relevant:

The most important thing about accommodation in my point of view is its location. When I first came here I couldn´t believe the number of students that had chosen accommodation without looking at any maps to see where that accommodation is located. Apart from the location maps that Uni and other private owners provide, there is always Google Maps, Wikmapia and tons of other websites that you can go to and find the approximate location and see whether its conveniently located for you or not. I don´t know about undergraduate students and their schedules, but postgrads here have a very tight schedule and need to study hard and attend a lot of classes hence:

1. It´s very important to live quite near your department. You won´t believe how pleasant it is to go home, have lunch and take a half an hour nap between classes at lunch time, and how much this can contribute to your better understanding of afternoon lectures.

2. Here, the main library which is called the Information Commons (we call it IC for short), is your second home. (I will write another blog for you regarding IC later). It is incredibly convenient to live as near as possible to the IC. This way you can commute easily between your flat and IC and the most important issue for me is that if you prefer to study there at night (which I´m sure many people do) you can get home safely and easily and you don´t have to worry about anything.

Hence, what I suggest for choosing an accommodation is to: find a good map, find your department and IC on it, choose something that is nicely situated near both.
The type of room you choose also totally depends on your style of life. I personally didn´t like sharing my bathroom with others but sharing the kitchen means you get to cook an eat with your flat mates and talk about your day, cultures , likes and dislikes with them over lunch and dinner specially on weekends and it helps you not to feel lonely. You also get to taste and learn how to cook different foods from around the world. In my flat we don´t cook the same food with my flat mates but we always taste each others cooking and have fun eating in the kitchen and talking.

The great thing that my accommodation manager did prior to us coming to UK was that they circulated the email address of the 5 flat mates to each other. This was an incredible idea because from about 2 months before coming to UK we started contacting with each other and got to know one another better. I specially got to know my Indian flatmate more, we chatted a lot on the internet and the best thing was that when we got there we already knew somebody and were expecting to see each other. It was a brilliant feeling to see that somebody is expecting you when you reach a foreign city and an unfamiliar accommodation for the first time. I think what ever accommodation you want to live in you can ask your manager to do the same for you.

Before coming to the UK I really wanted to know the size of the rooms. The room sizes vary form one accommodation to another and from one room type to another. But the normal size ones are usually 2 × 5 meters. It might sound small to you but since it´s only your own It´s quite convenient and spacious. I´m personally comfortable in my room. I live on the first floor so I don´t have any views but just take a look at the view from my friend´s room on the 4th floor. It´s amazing!

19 October 2010 INTRO WEEK

The intro week (the week before the autumn semester starts) apart from the formal registration procedures which needs to be completed with care and certitude, is the best time to get to know your classmates, make friends, see the beautiful sites of the city and the most important of all to learn your way around the uni. For me the best part was the Iranian tour The International Office had arranged for new students in which not only we meet other home country students but we were also taken to various parts of uni including the information commons and the town centre to explore both the uni and the city. We also got a chance to meet with the president of the Persian Society whom promised to arrange many Persian activities in the upcoming months.

There where also various other introductory tours like the Student Union tour and the IC tour ,which after attending them all I encouraged other new students to go since they presented extremely helpful information which if I hadn´t known I would have to spend much time solving them during the intense term period. Students with colourful T-shirts and sign bands written on them `Please Ask Me´, where everywhere so no body ever got lost or didn´t know what to do or where to go.

During intro week we also had a very interesting meeting with our professors in the Department, where we went to the staff common room, had tea, and sat down and had friendly talks with them. This was a very welcoming way into the Department and most certainly far different than all the formalities I had anticipated. We had groups talk in which the academic staff and the students got to know each other and the various procedures of the Department and what was expected from our individual performances were described to us.

Each student was also allocated a Personal Tutor who is a member of the staff in the Department, who provides a point of reliance if facing personal problems. The Structures course is designed into block teaching style meaning that you study a course for a 3 or 2 week duration and you move on to the next one. It´s a hard work and challenge but the lectures are worth every second and the time you spend in this uni is the most unique and best experience.

17 October 2010 ` Why I Applied to the University of Sheffield´

The UK´s intensive one year Master courses are very appealing for students who are married or who have begun their career like me, because it means that you can gain a great deal of knowledge in a short period of time.

The process of choosing the University of Sheffield for me was as follows: I prepared an excel document containing the details of all the structural Master courses presented by prestigious UK universities which included details of the contents of the course, the name and research fields of some of the professors, the academic and research facilities, and so on. After completing the spread sheet I started colouring those that were not proper for me. Either they lacked research in the specific field of my interest, were too expensive, or had a low rank in civil engineering on the whole. I highlighted the ones that didn´t suit me with red, the ones that I had doubts about in yellow and decided to mark the ones I was interested to apply to in green.

The only uni that achieved the green mark in my sheet was Sheffield!!! I will tell you why: not only it was one of the top three civil engineering departments in UK according to the Times Higher Education Good University Guide, the university as whole has a reputation for being in the top 100 universities of the world according to THS and the Civil Engineering Department has several research groups in the field of Structural Engineering and Environmental Engineering Science. The structural engineering research team is also comprised of: Computational Mechanics and Design, Solid Mechanics, Steel and Composite Structures, Concrete and Earthquake Engineering, Vibration Engineering, Blast and Impact. Dynamics that each have an incredibly high level of expert staff.

For me the Vibration Engineering Section (VES) was the prime and final reason that I choose this university. I wanted to benefit from all the unique lab facilities and the internationally renowned professors.

In short, I only applied to Sheffield. The speed of processing the applications fascinated me. Unlike many universities that ask the students to wait for long periods of time to announce the decisions made on their applications, The University of Sheffield deals with applications on the basis of submission. As a result, I happily received my unconditional offer in less than 2 weeks. This was very convenient for me because I had enough time to consider my situation and prepare in advance for coming to UK.

I had so many concerns and issues about different matters and it was great to see that I could email various sections of the university regarding my questions and I would always receive my replies very soon. Other than the International Office, who where my primary contact reliance point and were always so nice to answer my emails straight away, I emailed so many different places from the department´s research staff to the Information Commons or even the Health Centre. The kind and quick replies I received from them made me feel that I was welcome, and that my concerns mattered to them.

The International Office gave me brilliant support throughout the process of coming to UK. I personally believe the opportunity of being introduced to the Iranian International Office Ambassador at the University of Sheffield whom all students wishing to apply to Sheffield could freely contact and ask all their questions regarding the uni itself and life in Sheffield, was the best support provided by The University of Sheffield. We were encouraged to contact him regarding all application issues and if more help was needed we could always just ask by email and he would arrange and call us. Hearing a friendly voice specking in your mother language and advising you on what to do was absolutely amazing for me. I felt extremely confident in my decision after taking to him.

On the other hand, searching the research website of the Civil Engineering Department, I was able to contact some of the Iranian students whom had gained their masters degree in this Department and who were now dong their PhDs, to ask them about the Department. This also helped me a lot . Their confidence and complete satisfaction in the contents and output of the course help me reach a certainty in the choice I had made.