University of Sheffield

Rooms at my host university´s accomodation were quite big, but very ugly. You have to hang up a lot of personal photos and posters. Otherwise you see the damaged decoration and the ugly colour of the decoration. The kitchens were well equipped. They have been the central meeting point for everyone in my flat. The washing machines were terrible. They only had a short programme (about 20 minutes) for 30° washing. And even with the 60° washing programme the clothes did not get clean at all. The washing room only had 2 washing machines for over 100 people and only two dryers, which were very expensive. There was no possibility to dry the clothes somewhere else than in the dryers. I did not want to pay money for drying my laundry, so I had to hang up a washing rope in my room first, before I could hang up my laundry on the rope. The organisation of my accomodation was very easy. The University of Sheffield helped me a lot. I got prospects about the different kinds of accomodation in advance. The tenancy agreements etc. were sent by faxes. So the procedure was very uncomplicated.

Everybody who likes loud clubs and discos. As this is not my favourite way of spending my time in the evning, I was not very happy about nightlife in Sheffield. Restaurants are very expensive, almost unaffordable, and something else hardly exists. "The old grindstone" has jazz music live every Monday from 9.00 pm on. Very nice!

- Take good shoes with you, waterproof mountain shoes best. Otherwise you will break your legs. Sheffield is really hilly, and the hills sometimes are very steep. - If you hate walking everyday, don´t go to Sheffield!! - The closest airport is Manchester. - There is a direct train connection to Sheffield. That means that there should come a train every hour or every two hours. That does not mean that the train is really coming every hour or evry two hours!!! - Take a trolley or a suitcase with wheels with you, otherwise you get a heart attache in Sheffield! - Be friendly to everybody, then everybody will be friendly to you! - Do not take only warm clothes with you. The climate is very humid, you will sweat a lot! - Take a lot of personal photos with you. It makes the first days easier and you don´t see the ugly decoration in the student accomodation. - Try to find a room or some other accomodation before you arrive! - Be aware of the high prices in England! Don´t calculate with too less money!

It is a very complicated procedure to transfer money from a German bank to an English bank in an acceptable amount of time. Sometimes, I had the impression that English banks have never heard of how to do that. Everybody travelling to England should have a credit card with her/ him. People pay everything with them in England.

The most difficult thing was to communicate with English people in daily life, especially in very loud areas like the train station or in a cafe. The Sheffield accent is really hard to understand. Many English people speak accents, which are hard to understand for foreign people. If you as a foreign student try to read university magazines, you probably won´t understand a lot, because they are written in slang and most of the foreign students have been taught a high level of language.