Robin Lacey gives us a colourful account of life UCD and Dublin itself. It's colourful but not always so pretty... particularly where hygiene, health and humanity is concerned!

What's Dublin like?
Belfield itself is a nice place on a really sunny day, but at any other time it's fairly miserable. The college was designed to prevent any possibility of student protest and allow riot police instant access,which lends it its distinctive air gloom. It is easy to get around, I suppose,and fairly safe, although there's fuck all to do there.

As for Dublin, it's stressful, full of knackers, has terrible infrastructure and is far from safe, due to stupid licensing laws which cause hundreds of drunk people to be ejected from clubs at the same time, causing a stupid number of fights which the police are too corrupt/lazy/busy starting to do anything about. These same laws also mean there isn't that much to do in the city, since anyone trying to put on a decent event has to close early and deal with loads of other hassle. For this reason by far the best thing to do in Dublin is to leave it during the summer and go to free outdoor parties in the surrounding area.

What's the story with facilities at UCD?
The computer facilities are quite good, although there are fairly long waits at peak times. The library is quite good, although this is fairly irrelevant if you end up owing them loads of money and thus not being able to use it. I never photocopy anything but there are plently of photocopiers...there is a bank and a fair few banklinks...they used to give out fivers which was really good but they don't anymore which is shit... There probably is a student health care centre, but I've never had occasion to use it. All three bars are shitholes in their own inimitable way, primarily due to a mixture of expensive pints, shit events and identikit people....

How about the grub?
The food is terrible, much more expensive than Trinity, and every time a new place opens everyone gets their hopes up but it just serves the same bollocks as everywhere else... particularly offensive are Finnegan’s Break (which is obscenely expensive) and 911 (which is staffed by a man whose sense of personal hygiene should prevent him from working as a zookeeper, never mind a sandwich-maker)...

What kind of sports facilities are there?
There is a sports centre. You can play football indoors for about a euro or two a head, which is good. I think there's also a gym and the like.... there's a rake of football pitches, which are usually in a state of disrepair but alright for a kickaround. Also, there's an astroturf pitch which is quite pricey but you can usually just dink in and play...even better is the hockey stadium, which has the most beautiful playing surface imaginable... it's like playing on a carpet which has been engineered for football.... unfortunately this is usually quite difficult to sneak into and monitored by security cameras. There is no swimming pool, despite constant rumours, but to be fair practically all land-based sports seem to be catered for... although come to think of it there are no snooker tables, and pool is really fucking expensive.

What kind of clubs & socs can you join?
There's loads, but they usually just organise shit tacky events which are indistinguishable from the plethora of mediocre students nights already plaguing town on weeknights... I was on the council of the Alternative Music Society briefly, but it turned out they had unbelievably conservative music taste which they tried to hide by namedropping Aphex Twin and Frank Zappa on the poster...

I also entered an L and H debating contest, tempted by the €1000 prize, but embittered by my semi-final defeat at the hands of some of the most boring people I’ve ever met I gave up on the idea of debating. All the good sounding societies (well, the Dutch Gold one, the Simpsons one and the Lego one, to be honest) never seem to do anything. To be fair though, I think certain specific societies are meant to be quite good, for example the Drama Society seems to put on a play every week or so, which is impressive.

There are loads of sports clubs, the only one I ever joined was the Football one. I was signed up for a Sunday league team playing in UCD, but unfortunately just after the season started, me and my friends took to playing football after going out on a Saturday night, so I would be playing football until five in the morning and thus in no mood to get up a few hours later to play in college. The league seemed quite good though, well organised and all the rest...

What are the best bars and restaurants around Dublin?
As mentioned above, the licensing laws make going out in town fairly shit, in terms of the pubs themselves and the hordes of sub-Neanderthal scumbags starting fights on the streets afterwards. Having said that, there are a few nice pubs... Doyle’s in particular, and the odd drink promotion that is good. There has been a move towards putting more interesting music events on in pubs recently which has been quite successful, but most pubs are still fairly shit.

As I said above, the best things in the area are the free parties, which usually go on during the summer... big ones usually take place on the same day as shit commercial events such as Oxegen and Hi:Fi, and searching on the internet should provide information on upcoming ones.

What else can you do there?
There’s several cinemas, the IFI and The Screen are fairly decent. There are swimming pools, and snooker halls but they're well dodgy and really expensive...

What's the cost of living like?
Dublin is something like the third most expensive city in the world, and the cost of living has superseded London, Paris, and Rome....

What's the story with accommodation?
Accomodation is expensive and not the best, but people who put in the effort usually seem to find somewhere decent enough to stay.

Is part-time work easy to come by?
It seems to be very difficult to find a part time job, without experience or a foreign language. One place that is good for students is the M.R.B.I, in that they have flexible hours and will hire anyone... they're always advertising on Nixers.com so they shouldn't be too hard to find... I don't have a job, having burnt my bridges with M.R.B.I after missing work for one free party too many.

What advice would you offer new students?
It all depends on the person I suppose. Most people in UCD seem to be exactly the same, so presumably most of them have at least a half a laugh.