Arrival in London! Scared and soo excited. Saturday and Sunday 26-27 September 2009
By PUCCA in UCL LLM 2009/2010 experience. Right from the beginning until graduation! on Oct 10, 2009
After I passed immigration i was like ohh yess finally im here and ready to begin! I collected my bags and took the underground from Heathrow (Picadilly Line) to King Cross/St. Pancrass station (single fare 4 pounds better get the student oyster card as soon as possible believe,,that way its only 1.60 single fare). Apply to get the oyster card here after you obtain your student id and ucl email address: https://photocard.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/showLogon2.do.
Im staying at James Lighthill House Halls of Residence and the closest tube station is this one. So if you are staying here next year dont worry its excellent at least in my opinion!
Its only a 25 minute walk to UCL main campus and around 15 to 18 to UCL Faculty of Laws (depending on how fast your walk but Im not that fast i must admit). I love the area its so full of live, lots of shops, restaurants, banks and supermarkets around. And the accommodation its only around a 5 minute walk from King Cross/St. Pancrass station, isnt that great? You can travel from there to a lot of places in UK (scotland, ireland, etc), Paris, Brussels and other places in Europe if you find some time to travel that is of course hehe!
The halls are really nice and I love my room. Not that big but not small either. I have my bed of course, desk and chair, another chair for visitors :), wardrove and bedside table and my own shower, washbasin and WC. To me thats was very important cause i feel more confortable thay way and the common kitchen its big enough. We are 7 room per flat and my building has only 3 floor,,,all the people living are postgraduates but the people in the building in front of us and across are both postgraduates and undergraduates so you might heard a litttlee noise but nothing to worry about,,its actually good because believe me this postgrad building its really quiet which is perfect to study but its also nice to know some people of having fun out there hehe.
Dont get me wrong, we can have fun but not as much as undergraduates of course. Our llm is only one year so that means we have to work harder than everyone else. The people in my building its very nice and i feel at home here.
So well to conclude about the accommodation thing we also have a common room, laundry room (you have to ask for a laundry card which you top up online) and a nice garden. Security its everything here so you need a card to access every single place so dont worry you are very very safe here and the staff its very helpfull and friendly. Supermarket,,please go to iceland or sainsbury´s, the rest are quite expensive. Those two are only a 10 minute walk away and there are many convenience stores in that same road as well as restaurants. Like i said before king cross is just 5 minutes from there so you can go there if you dont feel like cooking or eating a frozen meal just go there and you will find several chinese, indian and international food restaurants, mac donalds, KFC, burguer king and much more.
I know i talk and give to many details but this is what i wanted to find out before moving to london so i hope you find all these details helpfull!
Mmm lets see what else..oh i order a bedding pack before here,,it was 50 pounds and it contained a duvet, duvet cover, pillow, pillow cover, another cover for the bed, hand towel and bath towel. Please bear this in mind. You can also bring or buy yours here, its up to you. OH no toilet paper in the rooms so if you have ensuite accomodation for gods sake bring your own, at least that what i did.
Ok then that was Saturday night when i arrived, then Sunday I simply walked around and found out about all the above places i mentioned and YES i went to the uni as well. GREAT AND AMAZING! i was so excited i couldnt contain myself,,,i was finally here!
I took a walk around the main campus, the student union and the faculty of law because i wanted to make sure i was going to find my way on the registration day. You could enroll that Sunday but i decided to wait until Monday.
Oh yes you can also do it during the international students orientation program which i missed due to my visa issued but its ok you are not missing aaa lotttt and you can always rely on facebook to check what happened there. Its good for you to contact some of your classmates before you come so you know somebody at least because ucl llm class was hugeeeeee almost 400 people i was like wow i cannot believe this,,,but yessss,,,but then the classes are smaller of course because we then all split and divide according to our specialization and the subjects we are interested in taking.
Ok thats all for this 2 first days lets move on to the interesting part,,registration etc etc
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