Summing Up New Cross and Some Final Tips

Okay, some things about New Cross!

After talking with many British people about it, apparently New Cross is not exactly the place to be in London. It’s been known to be a bit shady (although it seemed completely fine to me) and to not have too much going on. However, my experience was generally a good one and New Cross definitely grew on me over the three months that I lived there.

There are plenty of food options, although various restaurants and stores seemed to be closed on random days of the week. There is a lot of fried chicken in New Cross– you just have to accept it and embrace it (if you’re a meat-eater). After trying out a few of the local chicken places, I determined that Chick Chicken has the best value for your pound and is very tasty too. However, my favorite food spot was a little restaurant called Chinwag, which is right across the street from Goldsmiths. It has a really cute atmosphere and serves amazing food at a decent price (which is important since  things are generally really expensive in London). Another place that I wound up at a lot was the Goldsmiths Cafe (right next door to Chinwag), which is good for a cheap breakfast or just a quick coffee to go. Other local places to eat include: Cummin’ Up (a Caribbean food place with an (un)fortunate name), a couple of Chinese takeout places, Nouvelle Spice (an Indian restaurant with pretty good food), Subway (the only American chain you’ll find in New Cross), and the Goldsmiths Garden Cafe (a cheap place that offers hookah, mediterranean food and an assortment of other things). Generally the food in London is not so great, so when you find a good restaurant you stick to it!

New Cross House

 

 

 

Amersham Arms

The latter claim about New Cross (that there’s not much going on) is sort of true. There are definitely places to go out on the weekends or weeknights but generally things are pretty low-key. There are a few pubs within short walking distance including the Hobgoblin, which is right next to Loring Hall. The Hobgoblin is very laid back but it can get crowded on Fridays and Saturdays and it’s a pretty big hangout for Goldsmiths students. It’s a nice place to get cozy and hang out and they have a bunch of games at the bar that you can take to your table including Jenga and Scrabble! They also offer a student loyalty card which gets you money off drinks! I went to the Hobgoblin pretty often and I also went to the Amersham Arms which is a little farther away from Goldsmiths. The Amersham is a better option if you’re looking to dance and have a crazier night. It’s split into a front room and a back room, which each have a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights (the front is usually an older crowd with more classic music and the back is usually a younger crowd with bigger dancefloor and different music depending on the night). Then there was the New Cross Inn, which is a typically seedy-looking pub that hosts live music as well as DJs and has a pool table and lots of picnic tables to sit at inside. They host a pretty good open mic night every Tuesday, which a lot of students perform at. I’m not going to say much about the New Cross Inn because it could be a whole blog post in itself, but I will tell you this: you should definitely go to the New Cross Inn, but you definitely shouldn’t make a habit of it.

Telegraph Hill Park (a short walk away from Goldsmiths)

weird cat mural in New Cross

There is also a lot around New Cross, if you look for it. I spent a few days wandering around the area, just seeing what I’d find and I stumbled upon Deptford which is just north of New Cross. There are a lot of restaurants there, a few coffeeshops, a food coop, many pound-stores (!), and I even found a semi-hidden public art space/cafe called the Deptford Project right off of the main street. Lewisham is another area that’s a short bus ride away and there you can find the Lewisham Shopping Centre which has a bunch of clothing stores (including a smaller Primark and an H&M) and a Poundland among other things.

at the Deptford Project

at the Deptford Project

in Deptford

Alright, it would be cruel not to leave you with some general London tips, so here we go:

• Not only is the conversion rate from dollars to pounds pretty lousy, but everything is just more expensive in London. If all normally priced items were in dollars instead of pounds, they would still be a lot more expensive than in the U.S., which sucks. There’s no way of avoiding it. However, I did find a few ways to save a little bit of money:

1. Get an Oyster card for your transportation needs! You have to buy an Oyster card outside of the tube stations (still unclear on why this is…) but you can find them at most convenience stores. A regular oyster card reduces all of your fares by about 1/4. There is a student Oyster card which you have to apply for and receive in the mail, but it reduces fares even more and I really wish I had gotten one.
2. The tube is pretty cool and convenient, but it’s usually more expensive than the buses are. When you take the tube (especially from New Cross, which is in Zone 2), your fares are determined by your travel between zones which can make things pretty pricey if you’re traveling over a long distance. With an Oyster card, the bus fare is only £1.60 (although transfers aren’t free), so if you’re just going into central London, it’s cheaper option!
3. For all of your grocery needs, the best place to go is the local Sainsbury’s which is super close by. You should definitely get a Nectar card! It’s free to get and will allow you to get coupons in the store as well as accumulate Nectar points, which you can redeem for cash value towards your groceries. In the three months I was at Goldsmiths, I accumulated about £15 worth of Nectar points which got me a close to free grocery trip!
4. Shop at Iceland! Iceland is a sort of discount (mostly frozen) food store that sells many things for one or two pounds. Obviously, it’s not the best quality food but they have cheap basics like toilet paper, paper towels, soda, tea and coffee, and even beer.

• London’s double decker bus system provides an awesome, cheap way to tour the city. Bus routes go all around the city and past all of the sites you’ll want to see. This is also a great option for sight-seeing when it’s cold out (which it will be).
• London is full of great free museums, so you should take advantage of it! A few that I visited for free were: the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Saatchi Gallery.
• When you are at a store or at a restaurant or just on the street, people will say “You alright?” It basically means “How are you?” but I’m going to be honest, I hate it. For the first month I was in London I thought that must have been looking really distraught or something because everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I’m still not sure what the proper response is, but a “yes” will do.

Okay, I think that’s it for now! To sum up my summing up posts, I had a really great time during my semester abroad. Some things were strange at first but I met some wonderful people and it’s an experience I will never forget. If you’re getting a little tired of the Pioneer Valley and want a change of pace, going abroad (not necessarily to Goldsmiths) is really something to consider. Also, the London exchange is pretty cool because it finishes at the end of March so your summer starts early! I had some time to travel and now I’m back home and have time to find a job and even pass Div. II in the spring 🙂

Summing Up Goldsmiths…

So my blog kind of dropped off right as finals were starting at Goldsmiths and then I was busy traveling and doing other things! But looking back on this blog, I realize that there is a lot of information I left out about Goldsmiths College and New Cross and the Hampshire study abroad program that might be very helpful to any Hampshire students who are thinking about doing the London exchange program in the future.

I’ll start with my experiences and impressions of Goldsmiths, since you’ll be studying there! Overall, I had a good academic experience although it was different from Hampshire in many ways. During your semester you take four courses in any departments of your choosing. You choose your courses by order of preference before arriving at Goldsmiths and then during orientation you find out which courses you’ve been put into. You can change courses but it’s more of a process than at Hampshire since you have to notify Hampshire about it and then provide proof that your change has been okay-ed. Each course also meets only once a week for two hour-long periods; an hour lecture and an hour seminar (which can be back to back or at different times in the same day). This was a little weird coming from Hampshire’s discussion-based classes, but the lectures were mostly interesting and each professor (or ‘tutors’ as they’re called in England) approached the seminars differently.

It might be hard to find courses that are exactly what you’re studying at Hampshire (after all, Hampshire courses are absurdly specific a lot of the time) but it’s very easy to find courses that relate to what you’re studying– you just need to make the connections yourself. A good way to do this is with the final essay which is the end product of each course. Every course has its own requirements but generally I had little to no coursework aside from weekly readings and the final essays. Goldsmiths didn’t feel as academically rigorous as Hampshire feels, but this turned out to be a good thing since it left me more time to explore London and do some traveling! Between the lack of busy work and courses only meeting once a week, I ended up having quite a few days off each week to do other things.

Loring Hall

As for housing, it was pretty much what I expected. International students are all put in Loring Hall, which is right on campus and is a short walk away from all of the academic buildings. Goldsmiths is also right in the middle of New Cross and right off the main street, which is convenient for eating out, grocery shopping, and going out to pubs 🙂 Loring Hall is a big complex of student housing buildings, which are divided into flats of about eight people. Each flat has a shared kitchen/common space with two stoves, two sinks, and two sets of fridges and freezers (but small British ones), so there was a lot of space to cook. The rest of the flat is just individual rooms (all singles) which are about the size of a single Hampshire room but with a small personal bathroom attached. The bathroom was definitely a plus. I was surprised to find that I was put in a flat with four of the other Hampshire students who came and then two other international students (one of which mysteriously disappeared to some other flat…). I was expecting to be housed with some British students, but it was a great experience living with everyone in my flat and it was great to get to know people from Hampshire that I didn’t know well or at all previously 🙂

My room

 

other side of my room (bathroom on the left)

 

view out my window

 

Mo in our kitchen 🙂

Overall, Goldsmiths has its differences but the general vibe of the students and faculty is very Hampshire-esque. A lot of students that I met and talked to seemed to be both open-minded and politically-minded in a very Hampshire sort of way. There is a lot of student activism going on around campus and there are constantly events and screenings having to do with different issues of awareness.

Since Goldsmiths isn’t an isolated campus and many students live off campus in other parts of London, there isn’t as much of a solid community feeling to the school but you can still find that sense of community if you look. There are many societies (clubs) that you can join even if you’re only going to be there for a semester and there are a lot of student events at the Student Union that run on a weekly basis, so it’s easy to meet other students.

Since I mentioned the Student Union, let me just say that this place is fantastic. The SU is all in one building and the second floor houses the Natura Cafe, which is an all-natural vegetarian cafe that serves up great breakfast and lunch options as well as coffee and tea and it is also full of comfy couches. It’s a good place to get work done and it was a nice option in New Cross where bustling coffee shops with wifi like the ones in Amherst and Northampton are pretty hard to find. On the top floor of the SU there is a bar and two outdoor patios as well as seating and a dancefloor/stage. The bar seems to be open pretty much all of the time, so if you need a drink in between classes that’s the place to go (just kidding, kind of). The SU also hosts student events on weeknights which are a good option for getting out of your room and having a fun night while not traveling too far away. Every Tuesday night is quiz and karaoke night, which we all started going to every week, and every Wednesday night is Club Sandwich, which is just a big dance party with a DJ and deals on drinks. The SU was definitely one type of place that all of us Hampshire students wished we could see at Hampshire as well (and we all agreed that the Tavern could use some more excitement, just saying…).

Overall, studying at Goldsmiths was a good experience. It was a little different that what I had expected when I arrived, but the students and faculty were welcoming and supportive and I came away with a valuable academic experience. It was good to take a little break from Hampshire and experience a different college setting as well.