University of St Andrews

The town is beautiful but for me the classes are a bit hit and miss as to whether I like them or not. I think it will be better when I get to Honours because I'll actually be able to choose something that interests me within my field, because so far I've been studying a range of things, and I don't like a lot of them. The accommodation isn't worth anywhere near what we pay for it.

They've recently refurbished it really nicely. I haven't really been to any of the events there to see what they're like.

There's a good range of clubs and societes but you have to pay £3-7 to join each one, which can get pretty pricey. I feel that it isn't a worthwhile investment because the events are never free for members anyway, just a reduced price. I don't normally attend enough of these events to make the investment pay itself off. And even at the free events, anyone can just go along anyway; member or not. They really spam your mailbox too; societies that have my name on last year's list, which I have no interest in at all, are still mailing me this year.

The accommodation is good quality, but it doesn't feel worth it for the price. Bills and WiFi are already included in the price, but the kitchen is only cleaned once a week and the rooms once a month. If I'm going to pay £5,833 I expect better than this. The prices are so extortionate they actually bankrupted me because my accommodation installment went out a few days before my loan installment came in. My maximum loan of £4,500 on its own isn't even enough to pay for the accommodation! If I didn't have a scholarship too, I wouldn't even be able to afford to live there. Each year the prices go up for no reason at all other than the university's greed and furthermore, the bad quality cheap accommodation blocks are going to be knocked down and replaced with extremely expensive ones, so the university will get more money which it doesn't need and poorer students won't be able to afford accommodation at all. In fact, the university has already started to knock these blocks down but hasn't yet replaced them, so there are extreme accommodation issues with some students having to look as far as Dundee for accommodation. I cannot believe how someone didn't see this problem coming.

They've finally refurbished the union and the classrooms seem to be adequately equipped. However, the university doesn't possess a swimming pool, which just leaves the local one or the sea.

I don't feel like I'm actually learning anything in my French course. They don't actually teach us grammar; they just make us do really hard translations from English to French and it feels like I'm totally wasting my time.The Italian course is set out strangely with regard to language and literature, meaning you have to study two separate literature items at the same time and in turn hand in two different literature essays in the same week. This is normally exam week, creating an extremely high workload and giving yoçu no time to revise for the important exams, because you spend your days having to write lowly-weighted literature essays. The speaking exam is normally in this week too. It's like they've forgotten that Italian isn't the only thing we study, and we have other exams to be revising for too.I really like the way the Spanish course is set out; learning first the basic grammar, and then moving on to more avanced, sophisticated structures, as well as learning informal words, idioms, and proverbs. I really like the variety to be able to learn so many different things which you didn't expect to be able to learn and it's great to be able to impress native Spaniards with your knowledge. The only quibble is that in second year, which I just finished, not all of the language modules have a speaking element, and I find this a real loss.

There are lots of different society events happening and the smallness of the town feels quite cosy.

I haven't really thought much about this yet, but my university has a good reputation so I imagine that helps.

There are always friendly people available to speak to, be they teachers, the actual student support team or the chaplain and his team. There is also a phoneline called Nightline, which I believe students can call overnight to discuss their problems.

Yes