9 Reasons to #LoveLancaster!
College Spirit week is here! You may have seen the banners floating around Facebook emblazoned with your college logos and the line '9 reasons to love Lancaster'. Well, not only is the collegiate system something to shout about, but this week I conducted some research with several students and came up with 9 more reasons to love your uni city.
The Collegiate System
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Last, but not least, on our '9 reasons to #LoveLancaster' also happens to be the best, and most talked about, one. It is, of course, our collegiate system. Every student on campus when preparing to come to Lancaster is given a choice of nine excellent colleges to live, work and play in. The nine colleges are: Bowland, Cartmel, County, Furness, Fylde, Graduate, Grizedale, Lonsdale and Pendle. Each college has its own unique personality and a specific part of our beautiful campus, which helps you choose where you'd fit best. For example, Cartmel, Grad, Lonsdale and to some extent Pendle are all located in our gorgeous Alexandra Park area, also known as south-west campus. If you're a fan of breath-taking countryside views (as I also talked about earlier!) and a neighbourhood feel, those colleges are perfect for you. Further to this, our colleges are nine little communities all within Lancaster University, which can really help you settle into university life and makes your time spent in your college feel like a family. Colleges are our first point of contact if we need help or just a friendly chat, we attend socials and events run by each college and sometimes we can inter-mingle at our events. Plus, let's not forget about the healthy competition between colleges, enhanced by events like Carter Shield, Legends, Founders and so on. For international students the colleges are especially great, because it's like bringing a little bit of home with them – especially for American students used to sororities and fraternities. Let's not forget, each college has it's own history and logo, making each one truly unique – you might also notice that the vast majority of them are named after things associated with Lancaster or our great county. It gives Lancaster that spark that other universities sometimes seem to lack as well as showing pride in our area, a pride which unites all of us Lancastrian students and our colleges.
The Societies
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© Mae Reddaway
Well where do I start on why we love the societies! Could it be that there is just so many of them and all vastly different? Possibly. I'd argue that there is at least one society on campus for everyone. Whether you want to get a head start on your career with Bright Futures, or you want to join a culture based society such as German, Scandinavian or Asian – Lancaster has those too! Our inter varsity competition with York each year means there's a broad spread of sporting societies you can get involved with, as well as music societies, our beloved Student Media (where you can get involved with SCAN, of course) – and even unusual societies like the Pokemon society! Whilst it's imperative you make the most of your time here by getting involve, just remember that you need to get your balance just right, like Ying and Yang – you wouldn't want to fall behind on your studies after all. Be warned though: getting involve at Lancaster is highly addictive.
The Community Feeling
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© Mae Reddaway
Have you ever walked around campus and found yourself lost? Or you simply haven't been in a certain building yet? So you proceed to ask somebody (hoping they're a 2nd/3rd year) where it is and how you get there? Well I can honestly say I have. The point I'm trying to make though, is this, have you noticed how friendly whoever you ask is? I have found everyone so far on campus that I have spoken to so friendly. They are more than happy to help you, after all, they were a fresher once too. It's all like one big community, even with the staff in our relevant departments. They are always on hand to help. I even stumbled across the infamous Loud Bus Guy wandering around the Underpass, who was more than happy to help. It's refreshing to be a part of a university community like ours here at Lancaster, we certainly embrace the ideology that sharing is caring, and a smile doesn't cost a thing.
The historic city meets the modern campus
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© FASS
One of the greatest things about Lancaster is how the historic stories, architecture and landmarks live on in the city, while our university campus is for the most part – modern. As students we get to experience both worlds and get to experience both cultures. If we wish to study the Pendle Witch trials we can follow the trail, visit the castle or take a wander around to view all the historic architecture. Not only that, but the aforementioned wonderful transport links means you can travel the Lancashire/Cumbrian countryside and get well acquainted with our beautiful bay area. As students we are at that stage in our lives where we are impressionable, therefore, it's vital for us to be exposed to not just modern-like culture, but also the historic culture that paved the path for the modern day.Of course, for those students who really are uninterested in history, we have the lovely modern campus as well as modern parts of town that you can absorb. I do encourage everyone while visiting and studying here at Lancaster, to get to know a bit of the history, even if it’s only a handful.
The Purple Card
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© Rachael Simone Barrow
Why do we love the Purple card? – discounts, discounts oh and Sugarhouse! With the purple card, us students can get discount in pretty much everywhere around Lancaster. Some will love the clothing discounts and haircut discounts, others will love the golfing discount and all will love all the deals on food and drinks that we can get. However, this is not the only purpose of the Purple card. The Purple card is our exclusive access to the Sugarhouse (University owned nightclub) call it a VIP card if you will. At only £12 for an entire year, how can one argue with that? Of course as the name states the card is also purple and who doesn't like purple? Eh?
The Shopping
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Lancaster's shopping scene is somewhat quite special. It's not a big city centre like Manchester, it's certainly not Oxford street but it does well in it's own way. Such as: New Look. Have any of you girls got the chance to look at the New Look here yet? I have to say…it's the biggest New Look I have ever seen. A whole floor dedicated to shoes, what girl wouldn't love that. To me the New Look is the biggest 'clothing' attraction that the city centre has to offer. Of course, Lancaster has a selection of clothing 'boutiques' which host a range of unique one-off pieces for students to set themselves apart and stand-out.On a different note, while researching this article with fellow students this week, I was told quite often 'we love the campus shops', 'we love how they have everything we need!'. On campus we can buy pretty much everything essential. Clothing, food, drinks, books and stationary. The same students also remarked how they found the prices to be cheap. I guess they have to be to accommodate students price ranges (good-marketing!). As you can tell from this section, we certainly #LoveLancaster for shopping!
The North-Western food
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© Matti Matilla
Okay so hands up how many of you are from the South? No matter where in the UK you're from, you undoubtably know that our food is the best. Here in the North, notably the North-West, we by far have the best food in the country! Whether we choose to eat off or on campus there is always amazing food here in Lancaster. On-campus we have a Greggs for savouries, a Chip-shop, a Chinese, Ketchup for fried chicken, the Venue for sandwiches and some hot foods, numerous college outlets where you can get restaurant based food and a Subway for sub-sandwiches. If we venture off into the town centre we have a Greenhalghs pie shop (if you haven't you must try their Steak 'n' Ale pies! – Heavenly), a GoBurrito for Mexican food lovers, fast food outlets such as McDonald's, numerous restaurants (too many to list), and then a personal favourite of mine: Soupanova!
The Transport System
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Every student at Lancaster (and even some staff) will at some point have to use the Lancaster transport system. Whether this be taking the 4, 2/2a, 3 or X4 to the town centre, the train across country or to the airport, or even just for people commuting to and from Lancaster. Lancaster is well hooked up when it comes to transport as you can see. Of course, we will experience delays and overcrowded buses (there is so many of us after all!), but the good thing is wherever you need to go and fairly fast there is always a way here in Lancaster! The buses leave the underpass every 5-10 minutes to the city, the rail bus every 30 minutes and you can go to numerous destinations such as: Barrow, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Birmingham, Preston and Manchester from the train station. May I also add, for reasonably cheap prices too! – Hello Unirider.
The Spectacular Views
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One of the first things we notice upon arrival at Lancaster University, are the spectacular views that surround our beautiful campus! Whether we are walking down the west side of the campus, overlooking the fields and hills or we are climbing floors in the building – wherever we are on the campus at any given time (for the most part) we can see these amazing views. It's like having a small piece of the Lake District on our doorstep. Of course, as many of you will find. It's not just pretty to look at, but it's always very refreshing and calming as oppose to city-life based universities such as: London, Birmingham or Canterbury. Who says we need to study in Scandinavia or Switzerland and so on, just for the amazing views, when we have this kind of beauty right here at home in Lancaster. Of course for our international students it's a little different, but I'm sure even they can agree our views are somewhat spectacular in nature.
I hope you all agree with my 9 reasons to #LoveLancaster, have a wonderful Spirit week!
Unfortunately, we have lost track of who originally wrote this article, as it did not have any author information..
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