Royal Holloway University Visit
This post couldn't be any later if I'm honest. Apologies for being absent for so long, but who knew schedules could get so busy without you even noticing. Anyways, on to the topic of this post today... I thought I would choose to blog about my visit to the Royal Holloway university.
So I'm approaching the age in which I have to start applying for university, and trust me it's pretty difficult when you get to this age and you either have an idea of what you are doing or you don't. For me fortunately, I pretty much already settled upon a course and a university, but hey! It doesn't hurt to have a look around at other universities whilst you can aha.
Well before I even get to the actual university visit, I've gotta say, you know you are starting to feel old when your friend who is a month younger than you is already driving you to the university, everybody is growing up so fast - okay, apologies this might be getting a bit irrelevant at the moment opps.
Royal Holloway. What can I say? The style pretty much gives off that Hogwarts feeling - to the all the Harry Potter fans out there, you will understand what I mean.
If I'm honest, I pretty much like the university for its scenery, the surroundings are great, but I didn't really go and see much of the facilities because it was pretty much a trek around the area by foot, on our own self-led tour of the university.
We had a look around the library and I didn't realise how big it was, like I understood university was big but damn there was like quite a few floors just for different subjects. But walking through the library I honestly could sense that old book smell. You could really sense the age within it all. The top floors held archives whilst the lower floors held foreign language books and much more.
From what I can remember, I pretty much saw majority of the area being green. And as much as I want to talk about the academics of this university I don't actually know much about it, I probably know more about interesting stories about the university.
To begin with, there is said to be a famous black cat which wonders around the halls of the main founder's building which is said to be the ancestor or may be some form of reincarnation of the founder himself, Thomas Holloway.
Meanwhile, there is a story a bit more graphic I could say... I suggest you stop reading here if you aren't really a big fan of horror shall I say? The most famous story is about the girl who was around back when Royal Holloway was a girls school. A young girl stabbed both her eyes but before she did, she claimed the polar bear made her do it (referring to the painting). Now every time there is an exam in the picture gallery, the painting featuring the polar bear is turned around and covered with the Union Jack flag as a tradition, but also due the fear that a similar mishap may occur.
But other than stories, there are few interesting facts about the university itself. There happens to be a secret dungeon which leads outside the university. The dungeon is underground which has a secret pathway which leads out, however the door is locked and it's said that only a few previous years have managed to go through that path.
Let's be honest... At some point during the trip, we aimed to reach the highest point of the building. But we failed... Quite badly... But from what I've found out, the top of Royal Holloway is mainly restricted with special access only. You will hear the bell ring from the clock every hour as it strikes but it's rare to get the opportunity to go to the top although a friend of a friend was given the privilege to go up there for photography purposes.
There's not much else I can remember or say about the university itself, but I remember one of the final things I managed to check out at the university was the sports area, they have tennis courts available as well as a large open space, accompanied with a gym and more. It was nice to sit on the benches with the weather actually being sunny for once - if you know how British weather is like, you'll know how unpredictable it can be. The area was modern and I really like the design.
Stay tuned for my next update which shall be about my volunteering with the Kingston Welcomes Korea festival!
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