As my year at Cass draws to a close, I thought I’d weigh in with a list of the 5 things I liked about my University. And 5 I hated. These are in no particular order and they are definitely my own thoughts on the matter, so you are perfectly free to disagree with me (but we all know you are wrong and I am right). So, here we go!
5 Bad Things
1) the FT. Unless you were around Cass earlier than 9.00 am, you have probably never seen a paper copy of the FT. Okay, granted, we all have access to the electronic version of the newspaper, however sometimes I enjoy holding the actual paper in my hands, and only having around 20-30 copies available is a bit pathetic.
2) These things. I don’t think I need to elaborate. They are solely responsible for me looking like an idiot trying to swipe my damned card to get in the building. At a certain point I wanted to smash them to pieces. Good thing I didn’t, as they are probably very expensive.
3) The WiFi. It sometimes suddenly dropped the connection, especially downstairs in LG001, and sometimes even in the study rooms, making it hard to work and study effectively. This is compounded by the fact that there is no signal downstairs.
4) The exams. I am not complaining about their being too long or hard or anything like that. I am complaining because first of all they take a really really long time to grade them. And secondly, we are not allowed to see the exams themselves after they have been graded. How am I supposed to learn anything if I cannot look at the mistakes I made and understand what I did wrong so as not to repeat the same errors again? It almost makes it look like we are in Uni just to get a grade. Wrong, I am at Uni to learn. I do not particularly care to get a high grade. If I learn, the grade will follow, not the other way around.
5) The content. For some modules I found the content of the lectures to be, in one word, a joke. Some modules labelled as “Advanced” were definitely nothing of the sort, some others did not follow the syllabus at all, and the material actually covered was a lot more limited than what I assumed it to be by reading the syllabus. This usually happened when the lecturer was bad. I don’t know which one comes first, bad teacher or bad content.
Enough with the negatives. Let’s look at some of the things I actually liked at Cass.
5 Good Things
1) The library. I’ll come out and say it. I am kind of a nerd, I enjoy reading books, although sadly, thanks to the massive amount of coursework inflicted on us during the course of the year, I was not able to read as much as I would have wanted to. Anyways, I especially appreciated the ability to check out books by yourself, to renew the leases online, to easily consult the catalogue (even though I have to admit I still don’t understand the way the library is organised) and to have access to a number of different databases without having to book a place beforehand. Although they should come up with a better way to return the books, other than that hideous box. Anyways, All hail the Library!
2) The classrooms. The seats are definitely a lot more comfortable compared to those I was used to in my undergrad, even too comfortable at times. I do solemnly swear I never dozed off in class, though (But I might be lying)
3) The Bloomberg room. And the Reuters one as well. Although they might afford to put in a better air conditioning system. It can get… sweaty when all computers are taken. I appreciate the chance to use Bloomberg without having to reserve your place beforehand, plus the room is prominently “featured” on the ground floor, lest you forget that that structured products coursework is due in 3 days and you haven’t started working on it yet.
4) The study rooms. The chairs could be more comfortable, and the booking website is oh-so-very-slow, but I usually never had problems reserving a room and getting stuff done while scribbling on the whiteboards. I like the whiteboards. And the black markers. Give me a marker and you’ll make me happy. I have witnesses to confirm this.
5) The professors (Although they admittedly do not look like the guy in the picture. Thank God). I won’t name names here, but some were very, and I mean VERY, good. A teacher that is able to keep me interested and paying attention for a whole of three hours deserves praise. And I always found them open to answering questions. And I usually ask a lot of questions, it’s a combination of me being very curious and liking to annoy people. Not as open as in the US, but definitely more than in Italy. On the flip side, I also have to note that some professors were terrible. I guess you can immediately tell whether somebody likes teaching or not…
So there you have it. The good and the not so good. I could probably have made this list a lot longer. But it gets boring and “ain’t nobody got time to read” these days.
Thanks for sticking with me and reading through to the end 🙂
Opinionated 
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