The end of my first semester at Trinity just came, but it’s been such a pleasure that I didn’t realise it had been twelve weeks already. My year is structured into two semesters with three terms; Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity. A very Anglo-Saxon way of naming things!

The two first terms are composed of twelve teaching weeks without a break but a reading week at week seven. For nearly everybody it’s a week without class but some students have exams. Normally, you don’t have exam before Trinity term (i.e. May) but some essay writing before and some homework to submit. In History I don’t really have a lot of class scheduled, around 12 hours a week mostly in the afternoon (with the exception of a very painful 9am tutorial!) which means you have to put in a lot of personal work on your own time.

It was hard for me to become familiar with Irish history without previous knowledge. It was not that hard to understand my teachers and fellow students, but when I did not understand, I only had myself to blame because I was chatting with my neighbour. At the beginning of the semester I was given a list of all my assignment with the date of submissions. You are supposed to submit on time but if you are not a native English speaker you can always play this card for an extension. Don’t forget to ask for a extension or you can be in big trouble, but your coordinator will be there to help you in any case. As I said I had my schedule of homework since the beginning of the term, so I am the only one to be blame for the late submission.

Luckily, some parts of the college are open throughout the night. We have a 24hours computer room and study and for the lucky postgrad a very beautiful building with restroom (that’s not a silly remark when you are an undergrad and it’s 2am and you want to pee!). The library is huge and closes at 10pm, but I wouldn’t advise working in the Berkley section because it’s too cold. You can find nearly everything you need and I am always surprised by the number of books in French. But as a true Frenchman it was hard for me to work in the library but even harder to find a good café in Dublin. The result, therefore, is that it’s very hard to find a table and a chair for work. All the theater and seminar rooms are filled with chairs with a tiny table incorporated. Sometime you can barely put a piece of paper on it. I am still wondering why there are so few tables in this university.

However, studying isn’t the only thing to do at Trinity. You will have a lot of partying to do! The student union organizes a party nearly every week (through the Ents Crew) and if you join societies you will have other opportunities for fun and socialising. For example, one week, I had activities every night (sometimes twice a night!). Unfortunately, I had a lot of work due that week as well. Before I go, my advice would be to take the plunge even if you have an exam the next day. I did, and ended up on a bus tour of two nightclubs. It was great fun in the club and in the bus…