If someone was to ask me how to sum up my DCU experience in 3 words, it would simply be “cannot stop working”. Even though the university is full of great people, staff and lecturers, it doesn’t stop the fact that a degree is a lot of work, not to mention an actuarial mathematics degree.

The resources handed to the students at DCU are significantly better than those from other colleges around Ireland. Counselling, transport and even green spaces where people can go to chill on are ample and clean. DCUSU (students union) are always looking for better ways to improve the college and the rise in university rankings over the last 10 years shows that this has worked. But it isn’t perfect. Often students need 2 buses to get to the college. If it’s raining you have nowhere to hide and the cafeteria is below standard, to say the least (I personally refer to it as “expensive prison food”).

While I have loved every minute of my college experience, I must say that was not thanks to DCU but more to the students within the college. The student bar is poor. The course was super hard. The campus is expensive.

DCU clearly sees students as their source of income, not as the people they are meant to be taking care of. Even international students are made to pay alarmingly high prices for a well below average experience with very little extras or benefits for the 10k they are paying yearly.

DCU is great. But it’s the people in it who are great. Not the people running it.