Last night as I twisted and turned in the sheets, my partner whispered to me. Little fast flutters in her belly, in the pitter-patter tempo, a little person began kicking. The 17-hour workdays are here again! Filled with many assignments and multiple group projects between the must-dos of cooking, laundry, and the odd lick of paint. A year ago, distance learning was implemented, and since then, challenges have come with it. Now, a year ...
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My name is Lorraine Helen Stanciu. Originally of Romanian ancestry, I was born here in Dublin in 2001 and spent all of my academic years in Ireland. It has been a mish-mash of cultures – speaking Romanian at home to my parents, consuming Romanian cuisine and following Romanian traditions as well as becoming more fluent in English than Romanian, learning a good bit of Irish, having multi-cultural friends and submerging myself within the culture of Ireland. ...
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It's strange how time passes, it had the ability to pass really fast but also very slow. It's March now, St. Patrick's day in fact. A very important day here in Ireland, unfortunately we happen to be in lockdown for the second St. Patrick's day in a row. I could tell you to look on the bright side, but what would that really do? The world will not be the ...
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As we move into February, we start the second semester here at Maynooth which can feel a bit hectic. Of course, everything is online, but it can get a bit confusing with tutorials and such. Anyways, in the United States it’s black history month which ironically is the shortest month of the year, although I still find ways to celebrate it here in Ireland. I myself is what you call ...
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January 2021 may not have been like how some imagined a few months ago, but perhaps it is not as bad as imagined either. With the number of cases around now and the third installment of lockdown, things may seem a bit bleak. Although, at Maynooth University January is a constant, as January is always exam month. Depending on your point of view it can seem like an added stress, ...
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Christmas time in Dublin is defiantly hectic, and even during the weekday the small streets of Dublin seem to still be packed. This year I’ll be spending the holiday season in Ireland just like I have the past year. My partner and I made the wise decision to go into town during the week instead of the weekend as to avoid the crowd. The game plan was to get a ...
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In all honesty, if you would have asked me at the beginning of 2019 what Maynooth was I would just look at you funny. It wasn’t something that I had fully thought out, but I just decided to take a chance. I always thought I did not have anything to lose by applying. The reason I ended up picking Maynooth was honestly the campus. After researching about DCU and Trinity, ...
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It is now a full year since I first came to Ireland to study at Maynooth University. This opportunity changed my life: I’m learning every day in my PhD, I’m in contact with different cultures constantly, I’ve made many good friends and I enjoy every day more than ever! As someone who comes from the American continent, before it was harder for me to travel through Europe, now it is cheap and easy, and I can’t find enough ...
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The future is looming. An ominous statement that every university student experiences near the end of their degree. For international students, it carries extra weight because if you’re in Ireland for only a semester or year, that means that what you may be experiencing on your college back home could be suddenly unpaused. You have to go home and figure out how to fit into a life that may have ...
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Since it’s already the end of the first semester, I'd like to introduce how much experiences I had during this semester and help you build your expectation of studying at Maynooth University. Firstly, I started studying at the International Foundation Programme, which helps international students to learn academic language and skills, from last January until August 2019. After this course, I had the summer holidays for a few weeks before the semester starts. During the summer, I didn’t ...
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