Accommodating the American

When it comes to grad school, I often feel like a high school senior preparing for college. Everyone wants to know about it, but meanwhile I don't know very much! Yesterday I received my housing information, saying that I have a place to live. I am going to have roommates! I also finally have an arrival date - 18 September. (I am going to have to get used to writing dates "backwards".)

I have to send back my signed Occupancy Agreement and two passport-sized photographs of myself. This is fine except that Strathclyde needs it all by June 29 and I received this information on June 24. There is a rather large ocean in the way, and it seems that all of my mail is getting routed through Sweden, despite the level of inefficiency this would imply.

Because Scotland follows the UK system of education - as they are part of the United Kingdom, after all - they want their postgraduate students to live in "on-campus" housing, in case they need us for something. From what I can tell sight entirely unseen, they are quite similar to The Gables at UNH. (I personally think this is a much better system than the American one, which is kind of along the lines of "Go find somewhere to live! Good luck!", but I could be biased.) I am living in a small, 100-person building in the middle of Merchant City, a 10-minute walk from campus. I will have flatmates, though I'm not sure how many or who they are yet.


welcome to merchant city

I don't understand how addresses work in Scotland, but I'm living on a street simply titled "Candleriggs" - my address is [redacted] Candleriggs, Glasgow, Lanarkshire. Some roads seem to have "Street" suffixes and others do not; Argyle Street has "street" attached while Trongate and Rottenrow East seem to speak for themselves.