Thursday 24 March 2016

Opening of the Common Room


Bit of a wee break since the last post, as I have been very busy focusing on assignment work and enjoying some of the different things that the college has had to offer J.
It’s been a busy week all around for everyone at the college. First of all the college official opened Social Space for students to come, eat food, mess about, game and generally relax. This new social space is open every Tuesday and Thursday 12 till 2 and I have really enjoyed seeing the students come in and enjoy themselves.
Opening Tuesday  saw Street Fighter being taken to the big screen (well the biggest we could find) with myself and others finding just how badly we could beat each other up by spamming buttons, have to admit , I got beat up pretty badly L  I got my own back when WII Tennis got brought out :D
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdlooTBWwAAghkO.jpg:large
Thursday saw a much quieter and relaxed day with students starting the FIFA tournament (which is open to all students in college) while other decided to sit back and draw. I had to leave early on that day but rumours have it that students even ended up playing Just Dance by the end of the day.
Our fun filled week ended on Friday when the college came out in force to raise money for Sports Relief as we all ran, walked or crawled for charity. Many of the staff and students decided dress up for the event.  There is still a bit of debate amongst the staff and students about who crossed the line first ;)
Check back after Easter to see what fantastic events we have planned & for more Social Space fun(the Students' Common Room)
From Thomas Black
Level 3 IT Student

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Trip to Teeside Uni

It has been an interesting week, as me and students from Health and Social and Public Services were invited to Teesside University for the day. An amazing opportunity that we gladly took with both hands.

No waiting about, as soon as we got there we were ushered into one of the large lecture theatres where we listened to different presentations from different staff that work at Teesside. The first presentation was mostly information we had all heard before but with little quirky things about uni life that were mixed into the presentation still made this interesting. Next was a presentation on finance and the different types of support that we can receive once at uni. I personally have heard a lot of different rumours about the cost of going to university and this really helped put my mind at rest. Lastly, we had a graduate from the university speak to us about what uni is like from a student’s point of view. This was very informative for me personally and gave me a good idea of what to expect when/if I do go to university. Most importantly we learn to be careful with bananas :D


After a quick lunch it was time to split up and have our taster sessions. Myself and the rest of the IT students went for a crash course in Game Design. I’m going to be honest, Game Design wasn’t my first choice of subjects, personally I’m a very logical and unimaginative person so I was very surprised when I ended the day and loved the session I had taken part in.

It was a very relaxed session where we learned about some of the different aspects of Game Design and how different types of people can fit into the industry. The session ended with us creating an “Escape the Room” game with random objects that we had selected. Some of these objects were;
A cryptex… (if you don’t know what this is get watching the Da Vinci Ccde)
A pirate ship
An axe
This was all based in Ancient Egypt and did I mention the 15 minute time limit we had to make this all make sense?

We just managed to finish this before we had to meet up with everyone else again and head home.
Overall a very enjoyable day and not at all what I was expecting from a trip to a university.
I can’t wait to go back.


Thomas Black