worst- feelings of isolation and missing out on things in first year best- supportive atmosphere, friendly place, friends I have made, opportunities available

worst- can be quite demanding at times best- strong relationships with staff and friendly atmosphere

pretty cheap city to live in and has stunning local value and views. only issue is ability to access places outside of bangor without a car as having one is pretty essential to life here and the opportunities you can access

felt safe and comforting just missed the lack of usable outdoor space (that is not the golf course next door) and was far away from everything

It's been a blast. I've enjoyed myself, so far and am looking forwards to completing the rest of the year. There have been a few hiccups regarding lecture timetabling and seminars being moved around, but this has not been much of a bother. The thing I have most disliked is the university's tendency to send out emails and notices two hours before something is due, like a room change for a seminar or a meeting or such like. This is irritating and more than once I have missed something because the email was only sent a few hours before and I didn't get it. More advance notice (several days, minimum) is needed in future.

The library is excellent, with knowledgeable, helpful staff and a good range of books for what I need. One of my only issues is that a few books for my course are, quite inexplicably, located in another library across the city. It would be better if they were all in one place. Some resources are also tricky to locate on the library catalogue and more could be done to improve this. The campus also has a good range of cafes and bars, though the prices are somewhat steep.

The support, from what I have seen, is generally good. However, I have not seen enough to be able to comment further.

The student's union does a very good job, but I feel it doesn't advertise events or what is going on all that well. I have been a few events, when I have seen them advertised (such as to a canine calming room) and they have been well run, but overall what I have seen has been few and far between. The freshers fair this year was also an absolute shambles. Because of 'bad weather' its location was moved and was cut down to one afternoon instead of two days. The queue to get inside was well over a half hour wait and once inside it was difficult to find the stalls I wanted and difficult to hear what people were saying.

The city life is good, though the bars and clubs could do with a lot of improvement. A lot of the really good places have closed down over the last few years. What is left are either the bad places or the mediocre, alright places. In contrast, there is an excellent range of shops and supermarkets, though sometimes it can be difficult to find what I need- Brown paper bags, for example, appear to be non-existent in the city. I also spent ages looking for pudding rice, which I eventually found after a great deal of searching. Fortunately the city is small so to search all the shops does not take long,except if you're looking for pudding rice and then it can take several weeks.

The clubs and societies are good. There is an excellent selection and those I have attended have been extraordinarily welcoming. Individual society and club information is difficult to come by, however, and finding meeting times and locations is a challenge. Individual society websites do not appear to exist and most have to instead rely on Facebook pages.

The lecturers are knowledgeable in regards to their subjects and they get their knowledge across well. The seminars are easy to understand and get to grips with the subject material. Course material is easy to get hold of and often I find I can use the materials across seminars instead of only once. I do feel, however, that I sometimes can't get across the points I would like because the lecturers don't always encourage the less confident members of the group to speak up, allowing the same few confident people all the input. As someone who is a bit shy when it comes to larger groups (above four) I find it difficult to speak up and I feel the lecturers could do more to enable me to join in the discussion.

4

Lots of great employability workshops and sessions that are really well advertised and clear and informative. Many are useful, though a few could have been given clearer titles- One that was entitled 'How to Freelance' was less concerned with freelancing as I expected it to mean (like freelance journalism, photography etc.) and more to do with starting an actual business. Whilst the session was still informative, it could have been better labeled.