IRELAND-DUBLIN

When I first arrived on Campus it was very hard for me to orientate myself. The campus is huge and it’s not easy to navigate around the campus. At first, I had trouble finding the check-in desk because the signs suddenly stopped before arriving at the check-in desk on campus. I was lucky that one of my flatmates already contacted me before we moved in on campus. She had arrived earlier so she picked me up from the check-in desk and brought me to our house. I was really happy about that because I was living in a big complex of about 36 houses looking the same. The first few times it was confusing walking through all these same-looking houses, but it helped that I lived all the way in the back near the laundrette. So I knew where I was when I saw the Laundrette sign.

Once quite in the beginning of living there, I wanted to get into my apartment but the key card just wouldn’t let me in. I then thought that I entered the wrong house and as the staircases all look the same I just didn’t remark it. I then left the building again to check on the house number. But I was in the right building and it was “just” my key card that was not working. But I think this example shows really well how unsettling it can be when all the houses look the same and you are not yet used to this environment. But over the semester I learned to distinguish the houses and orientate myself. Luckily I never ended up in the wrong building and I always found my way home. :)

Before the classes started I wanted to figure out where my classes would be. I already knew that the architecture department is located on the edge of the Campus. I checked google maps and thought it can’t be too hard to find it as it is on campus. But I don’t know how many times I took a road in the wrong direction or as I figured out later a big detour. The way to the architecture coming from the campus center really lets you wonder if you took the right roads. Until you arrive at the architecture department you think you landed in some back part of the campus where you aren’t supposed to be. But over time this way became really familiar and I did not question it any longer.

In the first few weeks, I didn’t know the campus and its buildings but also not the people. This made it really hard navigating myself around the architecture campus considering that I have hardly ever seen a building this confusing as the one we were in. When we got a tour in the welcome week I had a hard time remembering where things were. Most of the rooms are not labeled or at least the label is not helpful. When I found out that my studio was on the top floor I was very happy because I thought at least I will always find my studio. I just have to take the stairs up until they end. I then later figured out that this is only true for one of the staircases the other one goes up even higher… No need to say that I ended up on the wrong story at some point. But what was even worse was to find the smaller rooms in which we had discussions. Especially in the beginning I didn’t really know who to ask and how, because I often didn’t properly understand the name of the room we should go and I also just didn’t really know the people in my group. Therefore I would just follow someone I thought was in my group and hope that I would end up in the right room. This didn’t really change until the end of my stay. Because most of the time we went through several rooms until we ended in the room where we discussed. I think it has already become obvious that this building was very confusing. I remember the day we went to this room that not even the students who studied there for three years knew of. It definitely became easier over time to navigate through the building as I knew the most important and most used rooms and I also knew the people better and they knew me and would also wait for me. But this building was still good for a surprise until the end.

But looking back a big change has happened. When I came there everything was big and confusing and therefore sometimes also a bit stressful. But now even though there are still a lot of places I don’t know, the ones I know became really familiar to me.