Dundee – Image Credit: macieklew (Flickr)
The city of Dundee lies on the banks of the River Tay. As the fourth largest city in Scotland, it feels surprisingly like a small town with the city centre and both universities being exceptionally close together. This means that unless you particularly want to, you will never have to catch a bus or walk a long distance to get to all of the amenities you need. One of Dundee’s most appealing factors is that it is the ‘sunshine city’ of Scotland. Dundee gets more hours of sunshine than any other Scottish city, it rarely rains and is often warmer than other parts of the country.
The city centre is filled with shops, cafes and restaurants and boasts Europe’s largest one-sided shopping mall, the Overgate. Containing a mix of cheap clothes stores, fast food chains, stationary outlets and a large department store it essentially has all of your shopping needs under one roof, and the really good news is that it’s only a five minute walk from either of the University campus’.
Dundee contains two well respected Universities, and expect friendly rivalry whichever camp you’re in. The University of Dundee is a historic ‘red-brick’ university which was once part of the University of St Andrews and it contains many well respected colleges including the School of Dentistry and the Medical school. The University of Abertay Dundee is renowned for its computer gaming department with graduates going on to work for companies such as EA Games and Disney. The company which created the games Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings was founded in Dundee and if you pay careful attention to both games they contain many cheeky Dundonian references.
Dundee is also famed for the publishing house which published the Beano, and a large statue of Desperate Dan is to be found outside Caird hall, where you will hopefully eventually graduate. That is if you succeed in getting some studying in between trips to the array of interesting and well priced bars and restaurants in the city.
As the fourth largest city in Scotland, Dundee is often overlooked in favour of the more well known Glasgow or Edinburgh, and whilst both cities are lovely places to visit, Dundee is pleasantly smaller, drinks on the whole cost a lot less and the price of rent on student flats is below average. Dundee boasts numerous cultural benefits too, with the Dundee Rep theatre, home to the Scottish Dance Theatre which stages many notable plays. The beautiful town of St Andrews is a short bus journey away, where there is a lovely beach and many interesting things to see, not least the exceptional ice-cream shops.
Dundee is the place to go if you like sunshine more than rain, don’t like to get lost in a huge city but still want to feel like you are part of exciting city life. Dundee is also a good place to go if you want to gain a good degree, and have a very exciting time earning it.
Written by Rachel Jenkins. Rachel is a Student City Writer for www.studentsloveuni.co.uk a UK university city guide and information website.
