Fresher's Week

Fresher’s Week is drawing to a close – the last official day is tomorrow. I’ve been spending the daylight hours getting various things like banking, doctors and phone service set up and the evenings going out with my flatmates. Sometimes we go to different events but every night we all end up meeting back at our flat with our new friends to drink and talk.

I had an academic meeting for visiting students on Tuesday. They explained the grading system here and how it is different from my university in Canada. They said that the reason why the grading is so much harder in the UK is because in the past US students could only avoid being conscripted into the war if they were doing really well in school and so they inflated their grades. They also went over things I might never have considered such as spelling differences. The work here is much more independent than I am used to – we usually have a textbook for each class and specific pages to read before each lecture whereas here they give you a list of readings and you are supposed to decide for yourself how much you need to cover to feel prepared. I’m sure that will take some getting used to. I met with my personal tutor and was told that I needed to change my courses around so I got that sorted this afternoon. This semester I am taking Memory and Perception, Biological Psychology, Social Psychology, British History and Psychology Methodology. Classes start on Monday. There was also some good news on Tuesday – the University of Edinburgh is now placed at #17 in the world!

Emma, Amelia and I went to a pub quiz in Teviot on Tuesday night. We ended up joining a group of guys to make a team. They were from England, Scotland and the US. We didn’t do very well on the quiz despite having practiced beforehand. Though on one round all the questions were clearly taken from the same website we had looked at earlier!

I’ve been looking at what societies to join. There are so many compared to what we have at Queen’s. Some random ones they have are the Harry Potter Society (they had an actual sorting ceremony yesterday that was sold out), Chocolate Society and Cheese Society. I am thinking of joining the North American Society, the Wine Society, the Baking Society, SocieTea, Exchange 360 and the Psychology Society. 

As much as I don’t really know the area very well, I do feel at home here and am settling in quite easily. I was walking along a busy street yesterday when it opened up into a cute marketplace and when I looked up I could see Edinburgh Castle. It’s visible from almost anywhere in the city, as well as Arthur’s Seat which I am walking up tomorrow with other international students. Unfortunately I haven’t taken many photos but I’ll include the few I have taken – apologies for the poor quality. I have fear-of-looking-like-a-tourist syndrome!

My street

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle