Edinburgh Open Day
I had a pretty crazy time over the weekend. On Friday straight after period 7 I set off to King’s Cross train station, missing period 8 Oxbridge Physics, to catch a train to Edinburgh. I have been considering Edinburgh University as my second choice for quite some time now and although I have visited the city before I though it was about time I saw the University itself. I have to give it to National Express whose service to Edinburgh was awesome, taking only 4 hours and with free WiFi and power sockets. I then stayed the evening at the SYHA youth hostel which was surprisingly pleasant and cooked a nice breakfast.
Over the day I went to the Informatics, Physics, Biomedical Sciences, Maths & Accommodation talks but unfortunately couldn’t make the Science Applications talk and so talked to one of the people on the applications stall. The Scottish system is quite interesting in that although I am applying for Computer Science and Physics I could just as well apply for Computer Science and do the same modules as the Computer Science course allows for two modules of choice. The advantage to Computer Science and Physics is that I know I will get a place on the Physics modules, if of course I get an offer and all that. I also toured the Computing buildings (one of which was shiny and new!), the Physics building and the student accommodation where I happened to bump into Chris Nuechtern which was crazy. The great thing about an Open Day was that you met lots of complete strangers in a situation where it is okay to just go up to them and start talking. Overall I ended up chatting to a dozen different people all of whom it is unlikely I will ever meet again but it is good to meet people who are going through exactly the same process as you (not sure why school doesn’t count but I think that’s more an issue of friendships).
Overall the application process is going well with my first choice being Queens’ College, Cambridge followed by Edinburgh and then in no particular order: Warwick, Bristol & Southampton.