Hi. Welcome to this campus tour. My name is Georgie and I'm going to give you a brief tour of our
campus today. I'll show you some of the buildings and tell you a little bit about being a student on
campus. So we're starting here, in the heart of campus and this is a beautiful, really historic
part and one of the bits that dates right back to 1495 when the university was first founded.
So you'll see a few bits as we go through some old posters that are up for students
things like that which gives a real heritage to university. But behind me you've got the chapel.
You've also got William Elphinstone's tomb here. So he was the Bishop Elphinstone, which some
of the buildings are named after. His tomb is outside where he was buried. You've also
got the beautiful chapel here as well, where we have lots of events. Some of our music
students do performances and recitals but also people use it for weddings. We recently had
the wedding of two of our students who got married here as well, so it's a really beautiful part of
campus. So we'll head on through and we'll see the section that goes on behind this.
We've also got here to the right is the divinity library just in here.
Again it's a really beautiful part of campus. It's pretty exclusive, the divinity library, so if you've
got a friend studying Divinity or Theology or something like that you may be able to
get in and have a look, but it's a really lovely part of the campus and it's one of
our three libraries. So we actually have quite a lot of libraries on this university campus.
It just means that everyone has lots of space to study and the kind of books they need as well.
I'll just draw your attention here as well. As you can see, there's a few old signs and they're
really cool. They just show a little bit about some of the rules and the campus dating back to
1495. You may have spotted there as well there's a rule about walking on the grass.
This is a superstition that we have at the university, that these lawns here
the superstition is if you step on them as a student and then you won't graduate. So you
can risk that if you want, or maybe you'll just avoid it while you're a student at the university.
It's also thought that maybe just the groundsmen don't like people walking on it.
You've got, over here as well, as you can see in the picture now is our newly refurbished
lecture theatres. So these are massive lecture theatres. They're really good modern facilities
even though they're in a really historic, beautiful part of campus. You've also got behind me here,
this is the conference centre, so if you've been to an open day you might have lectures in here.
As a student you might use this as well, so it's quite business-like.
All the desks have microphones and voting panels and things like that. So we hold lots of events
there, but also you'll have lectures in there as a student. In all these buildings around this
area we have lecture theatres. So you can go and you'll have lectures, you might have tutorials
which are smaller sessions as well. This is the other side of the chapel, you can see here as
well. So as we move through you can see the really historic buildings and how beautiful the campus is.
You'll also find on a nice day like it is today, it's a little bit quieter at the moment because of the
current situation, a lot of students doing blended learning, so not as many of them are here on campus.
There's lots of benches around. Lots of students mill around this area
and it's just a really nice place of relax in between your lectures as well.
You can see ahead of me here as well we've got the two statues. So we've got the Lion which
represents England, and we've got the Unicorn which is the national animal of Scotland. So
just a little bit of information for you there. Gonna head round now towards what is
really the heart of campus. This is bit is the Elphinstone lawn.
As I mentioned, there was William Elphinstone the Bishop. So the lawn is also named after him.
Also the halls, so we'll go and have a look at those and I'll tell you a bit more about those.
So as you come through this little passageway, this is Elphinstone lawn that we're just coming up
to now. You've got the beautiful cloisters as well. At Christmas time they're all lit up. We have a
lovely Christmas tree as well, so the campus is really inclusive of everything that's going on.
You'll feel really at home on campus. This lawn as well is where we often host things like
our open day. So if you've been to an open day, you may have seen us here with gazebos and bags,
welcoming everyone. Also the hall is where we have our academics, so they will be there to answer
your questions and to chat to you, but we also use this hall for wedding receptions and also exams.
If you're having exams as a student, you may have them in the hall here. Across the lawn as well,
we've got New Kings, so we'll walk away, this way a little bit and I'll talk to you about New Kings.
So New Kings is also lecture theatres, but also smaller rooms. So you might have
seminars or tutorials. It can be pretty much any subject that uses New Kings, so it's not
a subject-specific building. A lot of our buildings do host certain subjects, but it
doesn't mean that you'll be just in that building while you're a university student.
So you can see it's really beautiful. It's a little bit Hogwarts-esque, so when those vines are bright
red on the building it's really pretty. We've got the statue there of Youth with an Apple, it's
called. But you can go and have a look if you're on campus and find out a bit more about that.
So if you're ever on campus, you can't really get lost. Everything's no more than about a 10
minute walk away, so as a student it's really easy to get between your lectures and also to
find your way back again if you get a little bit lost at all when you can't find the buildings.
Down to the left, we're not going to go down there just now, but you've got the sports
village. So if you're interested in sports and you want to be part of a sports club
you can go to the sports village. There's loads of amazing facilities: There's football pitches,
swimming pools as well at the aquatic centre. There's loads to do as a student at the university,
as well as having obviously your academic and your lectures and things like that. To the left as well
here we've got Taylor Building so this hosts things like English and Law as well. In this
side of Taylor Building, we've got our Law library. So as I said, we've got quite a few libraries on
campus. If you're a Law student, then you could use this library and it's got all the law books.
You can also use it as a student in general, so you don't have to be studying Law to use our
Law library, but it does provide great facilities for our Law students to have all those old books
and any documents that they need to use for their studies. We've also got, you may spot up on the sign
here, it says the Old Brewery. We're not going to go directly past that, but it's again, a bit of the
history of the campus, that students used to be given a free pint of beer at their break times.
That was when water wasn't safe to drink so it just shows how historic the campus is.
It's still there now and it's used for some of the offices of our lecturers as well.
Coming up here as well on the left, we've got our zero waste cafe.
It's a really great initiative. It's just been fairly new to the university. It's a coffee
shop basically and a food outlet and it is all zero waste. So you have to bring your own
bowls and stuff to take things away with you, or you can eat in. It's also vegan and everything
like that. So there's something for everyone and whatever dietary requirements you might have when
you're a student on campus. We're also just coming up here, you might spot behind me just to the right
there you've got Hunter. That is some private accommodation which you can use here on campus.
But I'll tell you a bit as well about our own accommodation, so most of our first
year undergraduate students will stay at Hillhead, which is our main accommodation
and there's a huge amount of options there. You've got catered, self-catered
and it's just a really lovely social space so as we head across to the West side of
campus, I'll point out where Hillhead is in the direction, but also have a look on our website.
You can find loads of information about all the different rooms and things. So I just stopped here
and behind me just there you can see the William Guild building and that's mainly for things like
Psychology, but again it's got big lecture theatres and seminar rooms. To the right here as well
we've got Edward Wright. So Edward Wright is a huge space for studying. So there's loads of
computers and study spaces, so as a student if you want to go there and again, study out of
your lectures and find information, that's a great place to go and utilise as well.
We also have our I.T services based up in Edward Wright, so if you need any support
it's at the library as well. So they'll tell you where to go
but if you need any support then you can go there and they will help you with I.T issues or Wi-Fi or
anything like that. But they're really great and they're really keen to help the students as well.
So we'll just head up. This is, kind of a main strip through campus. So the campus
runs parallel to the main high street that we started on. So as we go through, as I say
it's not too difficult. You won't get too lost and you'll be able to find your way on campus as well.
So this building along here, this is all Edward Wright. So as I said, there's over a thousand
computers that students can use to study. There's lots of facilities, lots of spaces
to break out and find rooms if you need to do any group work as well. It's really great. So as
we head up this direction, we're just going towards a really kind of unique and pretty part of campus.
Again, it's a nice place if you just want to have a break between your lectures or anything like that,
then you can do. So follow me up through here and we'll have a look at the Lady Macrobert garden.
So this garden, it looks lovely on a day like this particularly.
Sun shining, it's a really lovely day, but as you can see it's a really unique little
niche garden. It's really sweet and the water's really lovely.
This was created by Lady Macrobert and she did it for the university. She had three sons
and sadly all three of them died in World War II, so the three stones that you can see there
represent each of her sons. She donated this to the university as a memorial for them.
You can also see over to my right you've got the family coat of arms as well, which is
beautiful. Again, when the sun shines on it, it looks really lovely. But the Wi-Fi does
stretch here, so if you want to come between lectures and just have a little look around
and have a sit down, just get some time to yourself, it's a really nice peaceful part of campus as well.
So some of the buildings that we're just going to go past here are more like private residences or
they might be staff accommodation. But it shows again the history and the architecture of the
university. They're really pretty buildings and it just makes the uni kind of feel really homely.
It's not just block buildings. It's really pretty and there's lots going on on campus.
There's also lots to do. I mentioned sports already, but if you're interested
in societies or other things to get involved in, we usually have a big freshers fair every
September for students to come along to, find out information, try different things and see what
you want to do. So you might want to join the circus society or you might want to join the
Gowdy, which is our student newspaper. There's lots of things to do as a student when you're
on campus other than studying. So we're just coming on to the high street and this is again, like the
main route that runs through campus. So if you can find your way back to the high street, you won't get too lost.
Up at the far end there, you can see the townhouse. This has had loads of uses through the years.
At one point it was a jail, it was a Police headquarters, it was the townhouse obviously,
as well. At the moment it's a museum, so you can go up there and have a look and see what's
happening at that time. We've also got Blackwell's Bookshop up this road. So it's great for students
if you want to find out, get the books for your courses. You can get them in the library as well, so
whichever suits you better. But they will price match, so if you find something cheaper on Amazon
they'll price match that. I'm just going to step this way, to get out of the way of a bus...
and I'll tell you what's further up as well. So we've also got just where you can see the sign on
the wall here, this corner, this is our Info Hub. The Info Hub is a great place for students to know
where it is, because this is where you might get your student ID card. You might get some support.
If you need any help, ask questions, it's a general kind of go-to place to find that information and
to get lots of answers. So if you need any help, go to the Info Hub and they'll be happy to help you.
Okay so, it's getting a bit busy on campus. It's lunch time. Everyone's around, so we're going to
head down this way. As you can see, there's lots of people queuing. That's because they're there for
the bakery and the coffee shop. It's a really popular place on campus, and again there's lots of
things for everybody. There's lots of vegan and halal and things like that.
But they're really nice independent places on campus, so you can get good food as a student,.
Have a coffee in between your lectures, or getting a morning coffee to take to your lecture
is really important and there's lots of places on the university campus where you can do that.
Further down as well, that is where we started. So we've sort of, done a bit of a
square at the moment. We're heading back down, then we're going to go up towards the library.
Further down here you've got things like the Confucius institute.
So if you have a religion or absolutely no religion you're welcome to go along.
So you can go and meet people that are like you or get to know new people as well. So the university
is very international, a really global approach to universities so you'll never be the only person
from your country or who has your religion. You'll always be able to find people that are like
you, and like I say, meet new people, which is one of the big benefits of going to university as well.
So as you can see, everyone's waiting for their lunch time and so we're just going to head up this
cute little alleyway and go towards the library. So I've mentioned already a little bit about
accommodation, but something the university also does which I think is a huge benefit is we do
guarantee an offer of accommodation to all first years. So anyone coming to the university for
the first time will be guaranteed an offer of some choice of our accommodation and I really
do encourage people to go into accommodation, even if you're perhaps fairly local,
because it gives you the chance to meet lots of people, to try different things, to learn to
live a bit independently from your parents. Our accommodation is really nice. A lot of it's just
been refurbished, so you'll have new facilities and we've got a big head space as well, which is
like a social space. So you can get food there, you can play pool, you can watch tv, there's lots
of things happening. So it's a great idea to do that if you're keen on something like that.
Okay so to the left here, we've got our students union building. So this is where AUSA, who is
our Aberdeen University Students Association is based, and so this is where there's again, another
little coffee shop upstairs. You've also got support areas so if you need any student support,
academic support, financial support, anything like that, the university has a huge range of
support available to our students. So the student union hub is a great place to go to
get that support. We've also got behind me here, is one of our accommodation blocks.
So this accommodation is primarily for postgraduate students, but it gives access
to disabled students to have ground floor flats and things like that. So if you're an
undergraduate student who's watching this thinking about coming for a postgraduate, or you're thinking
you might stay on to do postgraduate, then this is some of the accommodation you could
choose as well. So we're going to just head up to the last little bit of our campus tour today.
You can see ahead of me here, this is the library and this is the third library that I've
mentioned now today on this tour. This is the Sir Duncan Rice library and it's again, fairly new. It is
a beautiful building. It's an amazing facility for students. It's something people maybe don't always
consider when they're looking at universities, whether the campus has an amazing library. But
it's something that really benefits our students. There's small study spaces, there's computer rooms,
and there's group study areas. Each floor focuses on a different subject. So you know
that when you're based on your floor that you'll have all the books you need for your studies.
To my left, your right, we've also got the Fraser Noble buildings. This is typically for
Sciences and Engineering specifically. But as I said, you won't be based in just one building. So a
lot of our students will have lectures in the big lecture theatres here, even though they're
studying English for example. To my right, and your left, we've got the Meston building.
This is typically for sciences, so things like Chemistry, Physics, Maths are all based here.
But we're also building a brand new science teaching hub, which is going to be, sort of, like,
back to the right of the library and that is going to be an amazing state of the
art facility with all our science labs and facilities in there. So if you're a science
student that's something to bear in mind. We're investing a lot of money into that.
So that was a lot of information, but hopefully you've got a bit of a rough idea of what the
campus looks like. It's a gorgeous sunny day and it's looking really beautiful.
We hope that at some point you can come to an open day if you're a prospective
student. If you're a current student and you just kind of feel like you haven't seen campus yet,