The average Trinity student would have you believe that, deep down, all UCD students secretly wish they could study in the hallowed halls and cobbled alleys of their royal College Green haven; that all UCDers would be Trinners if it weren't for that pesky Irish points system and that Trinity is better than its Belfield rival in every way - in prestige, in academics, in location and in aesthetics.  Recently graduated Richard Cosgrove says...

This is all probably true.

You see, UCD is a serious kip. Sorry to break it to any young Fresher about to embark on what he/she hopes will be a long, enlightening educational journey through Ireland's largest university. But take it from a crusty veteran, UCD can be an awful place - it's intimidatingly huge, impersonal and it has a higher percentage of D4s per student population than other college in the country.

O.K., perhaps I am being a little harsh; 1st years, don't drop out just yet. Cellotape your student card back together and allow me to give you a basic runthrough on all the important stuff; i.e., food, booze and entertainment. I’ll tell you exactly what this college, in all its endearing crappiness, has to offer, and how to make the most out of all on a daily basis:

Eating
The culinary delights on offer in UCD are rich and varied with a wide range of restaurants catering to every appetite. In The Forum and the Student Bar, you can get some nice sausages and chips. Downstairs in the Restaurant, there's some good chicken and chips. And the Vibe, under the Student Centre, cooks a mean burger and chips. Seeing a pattern? Good! Because the food in UCD is predominantly atrocious, greasy, fast-food. Your only bet for a decent meal is upstairs in the main restaurant but that can be pricey. So eat at home to avoid poverty and heart disease.

Drinking
Two years ago, in an act of unjustifiable vandalism, the only really decent bar in UCD was closed down. This was the Sports Bar; a cosy, inviting pub where you could get a nice pint and enjoy the match while savouring a hot-dog drowned in ketchup. It was great. But UCD's President Hugh Brady thought there were too many bars on campus. So he shut down the best one. Great move. So now you can choose between:

The Student Bar - it's a big, ugly shed that serves booze, but there's just something about it. Chances are you'll have some of your best nights sat in here. You'll see some good gigs, get horribly drunk and embarrass yourself with reckless abandon. But don't worry, everyone will be doing it!

The Forum - a relatively nice, plush little bar under the Student Centre that would be an ideal place for a drink if it weren't frequented by that unavoidable anomaly of student life - the society hack. Which leads nicely onto:

Societies
During Fresher's Week, you WILL be seduced into joining many, many societies that you had no intention of joining. During my Freshers Week, I spent a small fortune joining Archery, Riflery, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Ultimate Frisbee and Trampolining, as well as the bigger societies like the L & H, Lawsoc and the Film Society. Five years later I've never fired an arrow, never shot a gun and I'm still shamefully unfit but I have got Leslie Nielsen's autograph. What does this tell you?  Save your money and just join the societies that offer the most celebrities!

Accomodation
Those students fortunate enough to get accommodation on UCD's campus (yes, demand vastly outweighs supply) can be lumped into two groups - lucky and unlucky. The lucky ones get to live in Roebuck Hall, a brand new, clean, comfortable and modern residence. The unlucky ones get to stay in either Merville or Belgrove. Merville isn't actually that bad - it's got a Centra and it's near the Spar off-licence. In fact, the only real bad thing you can say about it is that it's not Roebuck Hall. But if you end up living in Belgrove, you must have been a bad person in a past life because...fuck! Belgrove flats are invariably dirty and dilapidated with paper-thin walls and shared bedrooms. And what genius of an architect decided that the bathrooms didn't need windows? Did this person ever live with students? Or humans??

But as dilapidated as campus accommodation may be, they will not be beaten on convenience and price. Alternatively you’ll have to live off campus, however seeing as the surrounding areas are of the most expensive in Dublin (Mount Merrion, Donnybrook, Blackrock) , be prepared to pay. In fact, to avoid paying through the nose to live in a shoebox, I’d recommend you check out somewhere a bit further away from college, yet serviced with a decent bus route. Along the 46a bus route (i.e., N11 / Stillorgan dual carriage-way) would be ideal, but these places aren’t exactly cheap either! Anywhere near to Stillorgan, Clonskeagh, Rathfarnham, Terenure, Dundrum or Sandyford would be within cycling distance but you will need to remember (i) bikes are REGULARLY stolen from campus and (ii) the majority of your collegiate endeavors will be taking place in winter when the weather isn’t exactly friendly.

Another option for anyone not fortunate enough to hail from the big shmoke is to have a look around the city centre. Once you’re close enough O’Connell Street, Nassau Street, Parnell Square, Leeson Street or Stephen’s Green you will have great bus services to Belfield plus added convenience when nights out in town are factored into the equation. You’ll also have handier access to bus and train stations, with a shorter Air Coach / Taxi hop to the Airport than from the more southern residencies (o.k., so that won’t exactly a huge bonus), but when combined with the added facilities already in town (restaurants / bars / shops / cinemas etc.) the benefits really add up, and depending on rent, you could really make a memorable time of your college experience (no thanks to UCD).

Computers
I suppose it's true to say that UCD has a lot of computers. Thousands, probably. But then again, UCD also has twenty thousand students. So free computers are always infuriatingly hard to find, and heart-breakingly unreliable. There is nothing worse than queuing for half an hour, needing just a few minutes to finish that bitch of an essay, while every second idiot on the computers checks their Bebo and watches videos of people falling over on Youtube. I was once an hour away from an essay deadline, with three paragraphs to go and as I stood there, hopping with impatience, I watched a young lady make a pair of animated eyes spin around with her mouse. For ten minutes. So for the sake of your studies and your sanity, buy a laptop. If you can't afford a laptop - steal one, because UCD's computers will wreck your head mercilessly.

The Library
In a campus filled with gray, imposing, Soviet-style buildings, the Library sets the stylistic bar.  From outside, it looks like a nuclear bomb shelter; inside, it looks… like a nuclear bomb shelter. It's a decent enough place to study though, and certain floors offer some nice views but don't be surprised if you get a desk by the big front window and spend an entire day watching the swans on the lake. Some advice for good students - around exam time make sure you don't leave your year's notes unattended.  They WILL be robbed.  Same advice for bad students - around exam time make sure you take a walk around the library. You WILL find some idiot who's gone for a slash and left his notes unattended.

Summary
More than anything though, make sure you enjoy your time in UCD, because there are ways in which this can be achieved and the whole thing will be over before you know it.  Just remember not to get too disheartened if the experience doesn’t live up to all the magical hype and promises made to you via the collaborative efforts of American TV and naïve aunts and uncles – college in UCD is not an instant one stop shop for all things wonderful, people are not waiting at the gates with a beer-keg and playboy/girl model for you and there is every likelihood that, at times, the experience has the potential to be overwhelming.  But fear not.  I am loathe to hit you with the old clichés of ‘get involved’ or ‘it’s what you make of it’, but there is no smoke without a fire, and people wouldn’t be persistently bombarding you with this crap if it didn’t have an element of truth.  So my advice would be to go to UCD, hit the freshers tent, have a look around all the stands and stalls and decide FOR YOURSELF (because all those reps are merely looking for your EUR2.00, so IGNORE THEM) what YOU want to do with your social life in college, and try stick to one or two societies (be it a political group, sport, debating society, activity or otherwise), and there is plenty of variety. This is a sure-fire method to set yourself up with a core group of friends.  The bigger societies will fill make the biggest impact (C+E, B+L, Lawsoc, L+H, etc) but be realistic, if they have 3,000 members, are you really going to get to know anyone?  Stick to the medium/little guys!  Don’t piss your money away on a host of clubs you are never going to give any time to, and whatever you do, don’t get disheartened if by Christmas you’re still to down a beer-bong with people chanting your new nickname of “PLUNGER, PLUNGER, PLUNGER” while everyone wears togas. It doesn’t work that way, but it can work.

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