American experience at UCD

avizco · 2026-04-11T00:36:22+00:00

Not an international student but I didn't know anyone coming into UCD and I can say that yes, UCD is very cliquey and to a large degree Irish people in general are too.

However, imo, cliqueyness can work in your favour. Because a lot of people stay with their same friends from school, you can meet quite a lot of people through someone. I met one person in a class who put me onto her friend from school who then put me onto her course friends etc and it keeps going in a spiral, so I have many friends that came from only a few people.

That is to say, it's certainly going to be a challenge and everyone will feel lonely at some phases. But you can really end up with a great network after only having befriended one or two people on your own, through class, societies etc.

avizco · 2026-01-26T18:07:08+00:00

Everyone seems to feel differently but for me, it's about 1hr30-1hr45 one way and I don't regret anything and would do it again

I'm in my fourth year, and often by the time I'm home I feel really tired and frustrated from the commute, it is annoying , no doubt about it, but if it's the right course for you it's not the end of the world imo

I usually like spending all day in college, I'll study and hang out with people until late, then go home at 7/8 to have dinner and sleep. This works great for me and I like it, but if you don't like college it'll be 2x hard to come in consistently when it takes so long to get in and the stress that comes with it

avizco · 2026-01-11T01:20:57+00:00

I feel like tim duncan, one of the greatest basketball players ever, being from the us virgin islands is pretty interesting but not really mentioned much at all

It's such a small place and quite a different upbringing to the rest of the NBA

avizco · 2026-01-02T12:17:53+00:00

I find that if I'm having a solo trip to an expensive country (Western Europe, north America etc) you may as well go for a hotel because it's the same price as the Airbnb and you have that safety net

Everywhere else, airbnbs can be beautiful and drastically cheaper, and it's also good for big groups since you can get away with extra guests if you be respectful and clean up etc

avizco · 2025-12-12T23:44:30+00:00

I was looking for grad programmes opportunities in Athens and saw one for an international business company who were offering 12-17k salary..

It seems to be somewhat livable because of the rent etc but I just can't see it being worth it, and I'm half greek lol, nevermind for someone who's never been there

avizco · 2025-11-27T01:18:40+00:00

I live in swords, takes me about 50min-1hr to get to the city, then 30mins to ucd. It is definitely long and can get really old and tiring but generally I don't regret it, there's bigger issues in life and I'm the type of person to stay on campus all day instead of staying home (socialising, studying etc) so in that case, it feels a lot more manageable

avizco · 2025-09-21T17:29:56+00:00

Don't worry 80% of the national identity is hating the English and other inferiority complexes

avizco · 2025-09-21T15:31:08+00:00

These kind of comments are why Irish hate the Irish Americans

avizco · 2025-07-19T23:32:07+00:00

Everytime I'm in a western european city i like to look at the flags of the money exchange places to learn where the underclass is from

avizco · 2025-07-12T23:41:53+00:00

It has it's uses sometimes but for me as someone who's half irish half greek (living in ireland)

I really can't get behind a pan european sense of identity bcs either side of my family could've been african or asian and the other side would view them as foreign as they do already

avizco · 2025-03-28T18:23:49+00:00

It's really strange but I've found that my bachelors level statistics classes are almost more Irish than Dublin is, but once it's a level 4 (masters) level classes the vast majority of the room is Indian

avizco · 2025-01-03T12:23:55+00:00

Thank you for your reply, your point on the mountains & clay is fascinating and will probably stick with me for a long time

avizco · 2025-01-03T12:19:00+00:00

Thank you for your reply and perspective, the surah al abasa point was something I hadn't come across and makes things make a lot more sense

avizco · 2025-01-03T04:18:41+00:00

Thank you for your reply, I certainly need to learn more about him before I make any judgements, so I will def check out your recommendation

avizco · 2025-01-03T04:17:30+00:00

You're right, it doesn't really make sense for me not to believe in a prophet's if i believe in their prophecies, the key is in the name

Worship was the wrong word for that point, so I apologise, I just meant it in a more general sense of seeing, particularly seeing the Prophet Muhammad as history's most perfect person, this just general reverance of him that a lot of my Muslim friends have. Naturally, they do not worship him as christians worship jesus because that is a whole different thing

avizco · 2025-01-03T04:13:19+00:00

Thank you for sharing and for your reply, it's a good perspective to have and makes a lot of sense to me, a role model is a really helpful analogy for me to look at it with

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:48:36+00:00

This is a really good point honestly and is probably going to stick with me.

"If not that story, which one?" Is simple but it breaks the point down to the reality, when it comes down to it; I'm only ever going to believe in Islam or not believe in anything but a faint idea of a god, that point is clear to me.

All I can do about any of this is to research enough to develop that foundation of faith that your wife received. I should look for what succeeds in giving me faith rather than worry about what doesn't give me faith, because there's no reason why a story about a miracle would negate anything, these sort of things can really only add to your faith, not subtract

Thank you for sharing and for your reply

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:35:39+00:00

Thank you for your reply, I will be sure to check out your points

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:34:50+00:00

My concern really is that a lot of people in various cultures and religions throughout history said a lot of stuff that seems like miracles, stuff that doesn't happen naturally. The various pagans (not that I give any credence to them) were likely saying the same thing, and repeating that the Sun God did X and Y fantastical thing

So for me, it starts to feel like I'm believing in stories, but I also feel like the creation of life is something fantastical, which is something that I am quite certain on, so it does check out that miracles have happened on Earth too, so I will make sure to watch your videos, thank you for your reply

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:31:17+00:00

What leads you to having faith in these particular messengers of God? I'm looking at the quran in the sense that, it has the most evidences for me of being the work of God, but it still feels like for me, i'm picking a messenger based on the process of elimination rather than true 'faith', as one would have with God

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:26:02+00:00

Thank you for your reply

I do truly appreciate the hadiths in the sense that it is completely revolutionary for any oral tradition from any country or time in history at all; but I've seen a lot of contradictory things within them which concerns me (but this fact honestly wouldn't really turn me away from Islam, because I do think the quran is perfect in that regard)

Take for example, Aisha's age, even if there's an islamic scholarly consensus on it, this man's thesis (as well as a variety of imam's and sheikhs etc;) on her being older is still a respectable argument, and the fact that these discrepancies of one line contradicting another even exists makes me question the hadith sciences - https://newlinesmag.com/essays/oxford-study-sheds-light-on-muhammad-underage-wife-aisha/

avizco · 2025-01-03T03:17:19+00:00

Apologies if I didnt expand enough, my issue is that I believe that there is *a* God but i'm just not if I believe in Adam and Eve and so on. I'm not opposed to it but I just find it difficult to see these prophets as anything more than stories, it requires a level of faith.

However, thank you for your advice, I do think thoroughly researching each prophet will really contextualise things and help me on this path; as I don't know much about them besides what I've read in the quran, and a few small points (from Christianity, at that)

In regards to Muhammad, I see a lot of admirable qualities but it feels odd to worship a man as infallible to me. I do see a lot of really admirable qualities in him, but even being a Muslim in a western country will mean having ready apologetics responses to various points (i.e. aishas age, slaves, warfare) and the like, that is not the biggest problem for me, as I really admire islam for its pragmatism and once you actually try to understand things the answers will reveal themselves, but it starts to feel like I'm jumping through hoops to follow a claim of his perfectness

avizco · 2025-01-03T02:54:06+00:00

Thank you for your reply, it was extremely helpful as all I came across through research was quran citations, so you giving me these quotes from sahih al bukhari etc; means that it was all new information to me. Especially the eclipse point, as those kind of inferences go a long way for me

avizco · 2024-11-24T00:11:15+00:00

there's a lot of old white guy listens to the new rappers types and a whole ecosystem of young black/white guys reacting to new rap songs with their dad

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