Thoughts on the University of Sunderland

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So I've only completed two days of classes here at the University of Sunderland and as such my general feeling for the place may be a bit premature and skewed toward the negative side of things, but I figured it'd be best to give as appropriate an account of the school as I could based on my initial perceptions of things.

The Campus

Two campuses, really, one at the center of the city and one along the coast of the Wear River. It's about a 20 minute walk to the City Campus from my off-site apartments and another 20 minutes from there to St. Peter's Campus across the bridge. Both campuses are fairly large at first glance but really only contain a handful of buildings each. At the City Campus sits the Gateway and Edinburgh buildings, conjoined at the hip and filled with various rooms and offices for student unions and groups as well as a small section of desks for general university inquiries. Apart from my day spent in several tiresome queues for registration I haven't spent a whole lot of time there, but the buildings are very large and, as far as I can tell, in relatively good condition.

Of equal prestige is the adjacent Murray Library, several floors of cataloged textbooks and computer clusters. The university thus far has gone to great lengths to ensure the students know how to take full advantage of everything the library has to offer, yet even still I found myself groping around in the dark when it came to actually look something up. It's both bemusing and a bit infuriating that they charge the students to print out documents or copy papers, and considering part of my homework constituted printing off my module guide I was effectively paying the school for the ability to complete my assignment.

There's a new Sports Complex of sorts under construction as well, quite the ear-and-eyesore but should look lovely for the Olympic games in 2012 (occurring in London, though this complex in particular will serve the athletes to some capacity). Rounding out the campus are a few classroom and office buildings perched alongside the various main roads that cut the campus in the shape of a cross.

Compared to WestConn, or at least the main campus there, the City Campus is both strikingly grander and more impersonal. There's no quad or similar student hangout past the small library cafe and the ground floor of the Gateway, which probably makes time between class an arduous practice in killing time. Fortunately, the campus is walking distance away from the center of the city, a bustling array of shops, restaurants, pubs, and nightclubs. There's The Bridges, what passes for an indoor shopping mall, and various sidestreets and main drags, all very commercial and in-your-face and, quite amazingly, *always* extremely busy. There's also a sandwich shop called Greggs that's all the rage around these parts. Think Starbucks in NYC -- these are freaking everywhere, and no matter where you stand downtown there are probably two Greggs in your field of view. I wasn't impressed by the food, but it's cheap and greasy and, therefore, immensely popular.

St. Peter's Campus is a little nicer. The buildings seem newer and overlook the Wear River, which would be a rather pleasant view if it weren't for the heavy machinery digging up god knows what across the way. Here we have the Media Centre, a rather claustrophobic building with state-of-the-art newsroom technology and resources (or so I've been told). There's also a small bookstore (useless unless I'm interested in spending five pounds for a notebook), a two-level cafeteria, crowded library, and a few other classroom buildings. One in particular, the David Goldman building for Business and Technology, is actually quite a modern, elegant place, with a grand central computer cluster surrounded by classrooms. Also of note is the Glass Centre; apparently Sunderland is one of the only universities around that offers a degree in the art of glass, and the building itself is quite a work of art (complete with its clear glass ceiling).

There's a nice little area behind the buildings overlooking the river where students can walk down to the coast, another 20 minute walk that I haven't had the time to trek, but on sunny days the weather can be quite agreeable so I should best take advantage of it before things start getting a bit too nippy.


The Nightlife

With over a hundred pubs within walking distance of my apartment complex, there's really no excuse for staying in (exactly what I've decided to do tonight). It is a bit of a trek to the city center from here, and I can only imagine it getting longer when the temperature starts to drop. If my flat was only five minutes closer to the City Campus I think I'd be alright, but as it stands now it's just too far away for it to be completely comfortable; nevertheless I've walked that path dozens of times already (at least I'm keeping in shape some way).

Anyways, there are plenty of pubs and clubs to hit up, but I've been more interested in the local music scene, which isn't exactly as bustling as I was led to believe but is still moderately big, especially compared to the wasteland of Danbury. Many bars have local talent nights, cover bands flood the bigger pubs during the week, and still many more pubs have house rock acts that play every week. For venues there's The Independent, a dark and grimy rock bar where the drinks are cheap (and the girls are even cheaper) and, right across the street, The White Room. I look forward to having my feet stuck to the floor this Friday (which will be my first experience at one of these elegant establishments).

Of particular note is Campus, the awkward, confusingly named bar over at St. Peter's. It's been billed as "Sunderland's first frat house" as it's supposed to emulate the experience of being in an American frat house. Now I don't have a whole lot of experience with frats but I can safely say that Campus has little in common with any of the Greek apartments I'm familiar with. It's most closer to a rock club: there's a large stage and dance pit, two bars, tables and booths, and hundreds of bits of American paraphernalia and memorabilia including tour posters, license plates, and other "typically American" garnishes plastered about the walls. The drinks are quite a bit more expensive than I would expect from a university-run establishment, especially considering the venue is competing with countless other, cheaper bars, but the atmosphere is unique and admittedly pretty classy.


Academics

The courses here run quite a bit differently than what I'm used to at home. Essentially there is no homework -- I have a handful of assignments to complete for each class, all of which are to be independently researched in tandem with various lectures and seminars I attend. The whole process is a little alien to me. One particular aspect that has rubbed me the wrong way is book loaning. Apparently I'm not supposed to purchase the majority of my recommended texts for my class (of which there are about 30 for each class), but instead I should short loan them from the library. For a class of roughly 150 students, I find it sort of odd that we should be forced to share a handful of copies of a particular book. Upon further investigation I discovered that the texts are merely reference guides to the independent study I will of course need to pursue on my own, so it is totally my choice what books I read or reference.

I still prefer the American way.

My classes seem interesting enough and my professors seem intelligent, yet I'm not all to fond of how the faculty here seem to ignore my emails. As you would expect I've been having some difficulty with this transition, and for a university that appears to pride itself on its student resources, the faculty sure doesn't seem to care a whole lot about individual students' problems. The philosophy of Sunderland seems to be very hands-off -- give us the tools to begin and let us figure out what they're used for -- but for an international student with no real grasp of the way things are done here, it's significantly more difficult. Various other complications have arisen as well, including my inability to formulate my schedule and the time conflicts of two of my core courses.

But I digress -- surely much of the frustration I have felt has been in response to little quirks and differences in education styles than underlying problems with the system itself (though I can safely say the system could use quite a bit of tweaking).


Transportation

And here's where things start getting ugly.

According to the University website, and including part-time, full-time, undergrad and graduate students, the school consists of roughly 17,000 students. So it would make sense that a school of such magnitude would offer an appropriate transportation system encompassing both campuses and various apartment complexes, right?

Oops, fail.

There are two shuttle buses, both of which fit roughly 16 students. One stops at every destination -- apartments, downtown, campuses -- while the other just bounces back and forth between the two campuses. It's a terrible system that doesn't appear to account for the teeming masses of students who need the transportation. The walk from my apartment to St. Peter's (where all my classes are) is about 45 minutes -- much too far to walk everyday. I actually spent more time today standing in the rain waiting for the shuttle than I did in class.


So those are my thoughts on the school after only two days. I believe the appropriate term, to sum it all up, would be "ambivalence." There are certainly some great aspects to the school and there are even more certainly some terrible aspects to it. But I am confident that once the wrinkles get ironed out I'll be able to enjoy myself and my time here much more. So the school isn't the well-oiled machine I had expected -- but what was I thinking? In some ways it crushes WestConn into paste, but in other ways, and quite miraculously, I find myself pining for the intimacy and general ease of the air that only WestConn could provide. It's an interesting duality that both makes my time here that much sweeter (not to mention important) as well as inherently numbered, as I will undoubtedly be ready to come home come December.

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