Hello again!
For my second blog post, I thought I’d get stuck straight in with information and tips that I wish I’d had before I arrived in Granada. Just knowing some of this might have taken the edge off the anxiety of moving to another country. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was information that I couldn’t find on the internet before I arrived. I must note that the information I do provide is very specific to my situation. So, all of my blog posts about the university will centre around the faculty I study in which is the ‘Facultdad de Filosofía y Letras’. If you come to Granada expecting to study Philosophy, Spanish, English and any other language for that matter you will most likely find yourself in this faculty and so my blog posts should be very helpful for you!
Here we go…
BUSES
My first point is a rather important one because it centres around actually getting to the university. From the area of Realejo (where I am living), you will want to grab the number 8 bus. If you don’t live in Realejo not to worry. An app I have found extremely useful here is ‘Granada Bus’. Each bus station has a number specific to it and if you type this number into the app it will give you a live schedule of the buses expected to arrive there. However, if you can’t find the number then no worries because they have an interactive map where you can locate the station yourself and find out which buses take you to the university from your location. For Realejo, Bus 8 arrives at stop 414 on Calle Gran Vía de Colón. This bus takes you directly to the entrance of the faculty.
When you first arrive in Granada, the bus is €1.40 per ride. However, once you grab your student card (explained in the next section) you can ride the bus for a reduced price of around 60 cents. This discount is accepted on most of the buses in Granada and works like a contactless card that you press against the metre when you get onto the bus. Before you first use it, you must hand it to the bus driver with whatever amount, above €5, that you wish to upload to the card. He’ll take your money, upload it to your card and you’re free to use it how you like. When the balance is running low, you hand him more money!
If you fancy a beach day at the weekend, I’d recommend Salobreña, that requires a coach to get there, then ‘BusBud’ will be another app you want to download. It’s available for iOS and Android and allows you to search and book tickets for travel!
ENROLMENT
Enrolment is the university’s way of making sure that you have arrived and have some courses ready to try out. These are usually the courses that you will have selected during their registration before you arrived and put on your learning agreement. However, be prepared as there may be some mistakes. A friend of mine, who hoped to study English Literature, opened her welcome pack to find that she had been enrolled on only one module which was Spanish Opera!! If this does happen to you, don’t worry! The first two or three weeks at the university are your mobility period. During these few weeks, you can try any class you like and begin to build your timetable by adding modules you like and removing those that you don’t like. But back to registration.
BE PREPARED FOR QUEUES. The Spanish are very relaxed when it comes to all things academic and the English, or at least me, are not good at adjusting to this. We queued for our welcome pack, which provides you with information about setting up an email and joining the wi-fi, for close to an hour! The queue for your student card and certificate of arrival were even longer! However, both have to be done and are really important. The faculty was kind enough to supply a few tables full of cakes, biscuits, coffee, tea and fruit juice to keep up your strength during the ordeal anyway.
Your student card is referred to as a TUI card. TUI stands for ‘Tarjeta Universitaria Inteligente’ and must be activated on the machines in the faculty before you can use it on the bus.
TECHNOLOGY AND PRINTING
We’re lucky in England that a majority of our universities are high tech and very efficient. After studying at the University of Birmingham, I am used to a four-floor library with each floor containing a couple of photocopier/printers that I can operate myself. If these are busy, then there are maybe four other buildings within a five-minute walk that contain more.
In my faculty at Granada, there is one room with three printers in. They are manned by staff that you must speak to, in Spanish, in order to get your prints. You can queue, surprise surprise, for the computers and print something from a pen drive or email. Once you have done this, you queue AGAIN to pay the lovely Spanish lady behind the desk that will the hand over your prints. The price for this is rather inexpensive. You could print maybe 25 sheets of paper for around 70 cents.
Not that this is very important information that is vital to your time in Granada, but the university does use chalkboards and pull-down projectors. You might wish to get a seat closer to the front as the chalk can be quite hard to read when you’re sat at the back. They also use a mix of two online platforms rather than one called SWAD and PRADO. Each lecturer uses them differently. They may be extremely useful and upload all of the resources including lecture slides, readings and activities or they may upload nada in which case you’ll have to return to the printing room, queue again, and ask for the number of the reading that the lecturer gives you. For example, you’ll say ‘I want number 10’ (in Spanish [Quiero el número diez]) and the lovely Spanish lady will return with the reading from shelf 10.
LONGER HOURS
As you may have noticed from the title of this post, I only wrote “first four days’. This was not a mistake but some extremely good news. Say hello to longer weekends because, yes, students get the Friday off! However, don’t get too excited as it comes at a cost.
The University of Granada runs a day that starts at 08.30 in the morning and finishes at 21.30 in the evening. Granted, it is very unlikely you will have back to back classes in this time but be prepared for much longer days. Your first lesson of three may be at 08.30 while your last is at 21.30. It makes you notice that we’re barely ever in university back at home! On the bright side, you really feel like you’re getting your loan’s worth here.
The timetables, that you must piece together yourself with the module information you’re provided with, are mirrored so that Monday and Tuesday are the same and Wednesday and Thursday are the same. My timetable means that I have a three-hour break on Mondays and Wednesdays and there are many places in the faculty to spend your time during these.
The cafeteria is very cheap and like the rest of Granada, you will get free tapas if you buy a drink. If you wish to order off the menu, expect salads, burgers, sandwiches, pizza and patatas bravas! The food is good and for its cheaper price, it tastes just that bit better. There is outdoor seating with an amazing panoramic view of Granada! If you don’t Instagram it, did you really eat there??
On the other hand, for those days where you prefer a quiet chill during this break, there is an open square at the back of the building that gets a lot of sun in the morning and afternoon with some shaded areas under trees once you feel like you’re about to melt. I’ve found myself here a few times between lessons.
________________________________________
So, this was a much longer blog post, but I hope it was packed with information that was useful. I’ve already answered a few of the questions I had before I arrived and so I hope I’ve answered some of yours and, if not, at least given you a little insight into what is important to know during your first four days here!
Until my next one,
Adíos.