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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As new international students, we are constantly invited to introduction and integration events, where we can meet people from all over the world and start friendships that you will enjoy and probably never forget. Unfortunately, there are not many occasions in which we can hang around a lot with Irish people, besides the classroom during the initial couple of months. I have seen Erasmus students plan their days with other Erasmus students only, which may be ...
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It is well known that Ireland has chaotic weather. If you Google the phrase "experience all four seasons in one day", Ireland will surely pop-up in the results. I found it lovely that Irish people seem to be proud of their country's weather and are willing to joke about it. An Irish friend recently told me "Having waterproof clothes is more important than having warm clothes". This is true. It can be really cold sometimes, but being ...
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Maynooth is a small and beautiful town which can be easily traveled with a bike, and it has a lot of cycling roads everywhere. My quality of life really changed when I decided to buy a bike. I was now able to come back home from the laboratory in the university to eat, and then head back to the laboratory. It was also easier to carry my bags whenever I went to Lidl or Aldi ...
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