Hey

Just thought I’d say hello to everyone, I’m starting a PhD at Reading uni in January, I’ve been well lucky and got the 1 position I applied for (actually got given the RA position so even better) and been totally stocked for the last couple of weeks but now the OMG I’m moving to somewhere where I know no-one and not even sure I know what I’m doing (its an interdiciplinery project 1 half I def can do but the other half is new to me and its based in that dept) has set in!!

I did a combined masters so knew tons of people from the previous 3 years but didn’t meet anyone new from clubs and stuff during my masters year so now I’m wondering how you’ve all found meeting people in a totally new area with out course mates? Any Ideas? Anyone from Reading? Do people recommend halls for the first year, not sure I can take the 24h drinking anymore!? Or do people reckon professional shared houses are a better idea?

Cheers

Mark

Hey sparklechops!
Im at Reading - what dept are you going to be joining?
I def recommend moving into a shared house - so much calmer than halls!

Its an interdiciplinery (how on earth do you spell that - its not the english department!) project between pharmacy and systems engineering cybernetics, the idea is to use a culture of neural to control a robot, put some info on http://minibrains.wordpress.com if your interested. What dept you in? How did you find it meeting new people? Yeah I'm not sure if I can take the madness of halls all the time but I'm not ready for slippers yet!

heya Mark. I started a PhD (biology) here at Reading in October and im in halls. im in Childs Hall, which is somewhat of a dump (tiny kitchen between 12 people, everything stinks, very institutional, not very homely) but pretty damn cheap and convenient being on campus - im in the self-catering extension, which is where they tend to put final year undergrads, postgrads and international students. They put the first year undergrads in the catered main block, so i dont see them much, although i can hear the screams! If you are going to go for halls, i would not recommend Childs. i am really looking forward to moving into either a nice hall (ive heard good things about Sherfield) or a shared house.

As for meeting people...im lucky enough to have a really nice research group, with whom i enjoy socialising with. most of my flatmates are really nice too, although, being in halls rather than a house, its a bit more of a chore to make an effort to get to know them (i think the big heavy fire-door creates a psychological boundry!). I would recomend doing the clubs/societies type thing - you meet dozens of people that way.

As with any new place, it can be hard settling in. But these things take time.

Hiya, welcome to the forum Sparklechops. Loving the name by the way!

Hello and welcome to the forum

Hey Sim, ah I’ll be in the same building (Ben Whalleys group) so hopefully see ya around some time. Cheers for the advice on halls, ill avoid Childs then, the name is enough to put you off, I’ll prob come up and check them out soon although at manc the worse the halls the better the people I found!

Hey fluffymonster and Tricky

Ha! Im biology too!
welcome to AMS! (council flat esque building that the biologists live in)

whiteknights hall is nice - i lived at Bulmershe snd that is also really nice!

Sim - what floor do you work on?

heya loopy. im on the 4th floor of the Lyle tower (attached to Plant Sciences) - Mark Beaumont's group. I dont need to go into AMS building much anymore...not since my snails got evicted from the 6th floor!