Eight frustrating things only Edi students would understand

It’s a unique climate of terrible weather and slow tourists

1 year ago

Whether you are a fresher or a postgraduate student, chances are you’ve sat down at least once and appreciated how glad you are to be a UoE student. However, as with any university, it has its downright frustrating moments that would send any student into a fit of rage.

1. The weather

Forget any faith you had in the weather app. At this point, the app is just going to give you serious trust issues. You’re on your way to your tutorial and it’s perfectly sunny, but then it starts raining out of nowhere. You take out your umbrella, and it all seems under control, but then a huge gust of wind sweeps you away. It goes on and on until you look like some poor soul skydiving horizontally.

2. Subway queue

If you’ve ever gone Subway on a Tuesday night, you’ll know how the line gets as big as Peter Mattheison’s salary. In two hours, you’ll have barely moved an inch and already gotten sober from the frigid air, making pre’s meaningless.

3. EduRoam WiFi

Edinburgh’s Wifi loves to play the game of Schrödinger’s Cat where it disappears and then returns every 15-minute interval. You just want to prepare for a tutorial tomorrow, yet the only thing you’ve changed is the WiFi settings from “disconnect” to “connect”. This is when the pent-up frustration of any international student starts to resurface, as you wonder why you are paying £24k for this.

4. Not finding a proper seat in the library

You go to the library fully motivated to get some work done and find a study pod on the first two floors, only to realise they’re all taken. You then head towards the third and fourth floor to find a regular seat at least, but they’re as crowded as the Meadows every time a little tinge of sun comes out. Desperate, you try LG, the fifth floor and even the cafe, only to find one small desk sandwiched between two students furiously working on their assignments. At this point, all motivation to get any work done has vanished.

What makes the whole process a million times more frustrating is that sometimes students just leave their belongings in a perfectly good study pod and don’t come back for six hours. The empty seat just stares at you menacingly, like a bouncer when you bring out your library card instead of actual ID.

5. 9am tutorials

I fully understand that the point of university is to get an education, but why does this education have to be so early in the day? I’ll be having the time of my life at Finnigan’s but then it hits me – I have a 9am tutorial tomorrow. I am not a morning person. The hardest part of my morning schedule is finding the motivation to get out of bed and just vibe looking at the ceiling for two hours. So imagine how much energy is needed to do the essential readings and then find the willpower to go to a 9am.

6. Living at Pollock

Ah yes, the true university experience – being forced out of your flat at 2 am because some idiot tripped the fire alarm. Don’t you just love visiting the pantry that looks like someone put an entire IKEA in a tornado and sprinkled some soggy food in? Or waking up to destroyed ceiling tiles in the hallway? Don’t forget the “wide” selection of food available from JMCC. It’s just not Pollock, though – namely, every student accommodation such as BeaverBank and Brae, is infamous for having horrid pantry rooms. Most of the students never grew up cleaning up their own mess, and it really shows.

7. The ambulances

Name a better combination: your poor ears and the LOUD sirens of the ambulance. Seriously, they sound like a jackhammer on steroids – do they really need to announce to the entire human race that they’re carrying a patient?

8. Finding a decent flat

With the sheer amount of students pouring in Edinburgh every year, flat hunting is one huge nightmare. The first two weeks are you thinking how mature you are for doing adult-related stuff, but the next few months are just taken up with just wishing you got at least one viewing for a flat instead of constantly getting waitlisted by DJ Alexander.

Even when you do find a flat, you open a plethora of problems, ranging from mice infestation to faulty heating. The worst part, however, is how you have to repeat the whole process again when your tenancy runs out.