University of Sunderland Housing, Part 1: in the States

The process of becoming a full-time student at Sunderland is more complex than I remember it being at Whitworth. Of course, I don't actually remember what all I had to do, and they were sending me emails and reminder postcards by the dozen. Sunderland assumes that I'm a big girl and can figure out what to do from the email that they sent me.

So Whitworth had at least three websites to register for before showing up on campus: email, Whitnet, and Blackboard. Blackboard was actually after classes start, but still. 

Sunderland has at least three: the housing application, the "MySunderland" homepage, "enrolment" (because they only use one L in "enroll" – yet another charming surprise of the British version of the English language. I fervently hope that my papers aren't graded for spelling...), and probably more that I have yet to encounter. I'm betting on an email sign up by August. 

MySunderland is quite useful for checking out what campus life might be like. It can be personalised to include various kinds of useful information, although it's not really relevant yet because I'm... Well, I'm still here in Spokane instead of in England, and I will be here for another three months. And five days. 

I can't actually access my enrolment stuff, so that was frustrating but slightly relaxing. 

Housing is actually simpler than at Whitworth. I found the application website with relative ease, and decided to get my application going before finals hit. There are, I believe, six student residence hall-like things: Precinct, Panns Bank, All Saints, Scotia Quay, and Forge Village - UStudent.

The names are as incomprehensible as Whitworth's were before I got here. Warren? MacMillan? Du- what? (Duvall! Sorry. They've taken up chanting again) With any luck the names will sound as familiar to me as East and Arend by the time I leave. 

I looked at the information for the various "dorms" (whether or not they are actually classified as dormitory buildings, that's what I'm going to call them for now) and decided that I had no idea what I was doing. Sue Jackson had mentioned that all the Whitworth internationals had lived in Clanny House, so I decided that I would just go with that. Besides, half the other dorms had electricity excluded from their "rent" and I felt that this could complicate things. So, I hit the "Apply Online" link in the "How to Apply" section and got started. 

First, I had to register to use the site, hosted by "iPams Live" by getting a validation code emailed to me. I put in my Whitworth email. 

Once I had the code, I logged in, filled out some personal information (name, birthday, gender, etc.) and my Sunderland student ID. I'm registering for enough sites that I almost have the darn thing memorised. 

After that, I started my application. I was expecting to be confronted by as many options as I saw at Whitworth: pick your top seven dorms! I think Whitworth even left Mac and Ballard in there for both genders. I remember being confused, in any case. 

Step one: Accommodation Options. From a drop-down menu, I selected "Exchange student Autumn session" based on idea that I was in the ISEP Exchange program. Turns out, I was right! The "Contract Length" selection then automatically selected Clanny House for "Location" and put "17/09/2011 - 28/01/2012" for my start and end dates. I selected "Inclusive of electricity" for "Price Category" and "2 Single Beds, Shared Twin Room" under "Accommodation Type". 

Next, I filled out the "Personal Preferences" Page. Female, no early arrival, no health issues, no accessibility issues, agreed to the University No Smoking Policy (by selecting "You must agree to the University No Smoking Policy" from the drop-down menu), and "I agree to the diversity and ethics policy" that I didn't read. 

The last question asked if I wanted to buy a bedding pack from the university store. I quibbled internally over that, then emailed a current Whitworth student who is, at this moment, living in Clanny House. In fact, she's probably sleeping there right now. 

Actually, probably not. It's only 11 PM over there. 

Anyway, she said that having the cruddy little set that costs £20 was nice for a few days while getting all set up and orienting oneself in the town and school, so I clicked the little check box for "Yes, please purchase a bedding set from the University Store". 

I had already clicked "no", however, and clicking "yes" didn't remove the "no" checkmark. We'll see how this ends up turning out later.

I clicked "continue", reviewed it, clicked "save", agreed to the submission guidelines, clicked "Yes" when asked if I wanted to submit my application, and then settled down to write this post. 

Reflections -- 22 February 2012 (slash 25 July 2012)

I wrote this a few months ago (in february, in fact, and it is now july) and then forgot about it. I just got turned into an "ISEP Ambassador" (in something of a fit of irony, given the issues a bunch of us had with ISEP) which reminded me of this, and I also have to resit an exam which is making me think about having studied abroad again. So here's my reflections from just a month after having studied abroad.


Tomorrow, I'll have been back for a whole month. It's kind of crazy.
I'm already so absorbed by school that I have a hard time sitting down and thinking about England. Fortunately, I have a lot of homework to avoid, so it happens more than it should. Right now, for instance, I should be thinking about inorganic chemistry.
So.
I was pretty close on my "what I won't miss, what I will miss" predictions. I really miss the people; I get excited when I hear australian accents before remembering that Josie is in Leicester, and it's weird being on facebook and seeing people from Sunderland friend people that I don't know and go places I'll probably never be.
And, yeah, I miss the easy Sunderland workload (but not the work itself) and cheese and onion pasties. I miss being somewhere where people know what a pasty is... and how to pronounce it. It is fun to explain the "putting stuff in pastry" phenomenon, though. Also, the "irish" pub that moved in across from Whitworth is reported to sell at least meat pasties, so I'll be checking that out sometime.
I don't miss the exchange rate at all, but I'm still confused when I cross the road. I have to think about where I would be sitting if I was driving, and where the center line would be, and therefore where a car will come from when it hits me. Ah, it'll be from behind. Better get on the grass, just in case they aren't paying attention. Note: this is only on campus. I'm very careful when I cross the street from my house to the Whitworth side.
I'm doing pretty good on the "not talking about England ad nauseum" thing, except when I get together with other long term study abroad-ers, and then none of us want to shut up. I found one girl who went to australia and knows the university that Josie and James went to, which was amazingly exciting, although it would have been cooler had she gone to their uni. I also met a girl who went to Northern Ireland (and who confirmed my suspicion that the northern accent is much easier to understand than the republic's), and who shared my frustrations over "I'm from Washington. No, not DC. Yes, there is a state called Washington. Where is it? Um, it's by California." conversations as well as my longing for pasties.
I've stopped saying "uni" so naturally and dropped back into "college", even though I use uni as a texting abbreviation.
I do miss being able to say "chips" and have people think "delicious, deep fried, soft, thick potatoes" instead of "crispy potato slices".
On the other hand, I've settled back into Whitworth pretty well. I've made new friends, even.
I blame my newfound gregariousness on having been somewhere where no one knew me. For the first time ever, there was no familiar face, no one I knew from church or liberty or whitworth, and I think I branched out without knowing it. If I wanted a familiar face, I had to get to know people. So I did. It helped that everyone else was dealing with the same sort of thing, and so were more willing to share my effort, but I could have made no friends. I know people who did just that, and I'm ridiculously proud to say that I'm a successful human being now. Last year, in Duvall, I did not make a single friend in my dorm.
This year, in England, I made several.
Of course, it's still hard for me to just strike up a conversation with someone, but I've definitely made strides in the "being able to function in the real world" department.