Don't Study Abroad at UCD

I'll try to not be too negative in this review, but I genuinely hated my time studying abroad at University College Dublin. If you are thinking about studying abroad here, make sure you know what you're getting into. I spent my whole academic year here, and I seriously regret it. UCD is in the middle of nowhere; it honestly did not feel like I was in Dublin. Students generally are not super friendly, and it was quite lonely. The Irish students are a bit cliquely and overall are not interested in making friends with American/other international students. The school is huge, which was something I wasn't used to, coming from a medium-sized liberal arts school in the US. The campus has nice facilities, but it's quite ugly (unless you're into Brutalist architecture) and has a strange layout. Housing was fine, although a bit overpriced. It's a commuter school, so campus is dead on the weekends when all the Irish kids go home. I was living in a 7 bedroom apartment, and while it was nice to have my own bedroom and ensuite, I was living with international students who were all slobs.

Ireland is also not a very fun country. The weather is absolutely abysmal. You're on an island, so you're kind of stuck here. Many of the American students take trips around Europe during weekends or breaks, but if you don't have the money to do that, Dublin gets really boring really quickly. There are some beautiful places in Ireland, but they all kind of look the same. Irish people are generally pretty cool and laid back, but most of them just want to drink and party all the time. I cannot emphasize enough how much I wish I didn't study abroad here, and I can only recommend UCD if you intend to explore the rest of Europe while you're here and use it as a crash pad, or if you have an interest in learning about Irish history (but Trinity would be better for that anyway.) Don't study abroad at UCD if you can help it.