Behold, Lakeside!

Yes, the long awaited and much anticipated switch to the newly built (yet, not complete) Lakeside campus has finally arrived! The past three weeks at Leisure Commerce Square (LCS) have been amazing, so the Lakeside campus has a lot to live up to if it is to even match how good LCS was. True, the fact that it is a campus and LCS was just a building would normally mean that its a no-contest, but I'd beg to differ this time, as LCS was just in a league of it's own.

I've been here at the new Lakeside campus for only 3 days, and I already regret the switch, not that I had a choice in the first place though. Everything here seems to be such a mood killer, and I'm not over exaggerating here, I really mean everything!

It's so bad that the problems start even before we enter the campus! I really do not understand how they can build a campus in the middle of a residential area catering to thousands of students, when there is only one narrow road leading to and from the campus! Seriously, this is the part I hate the most about the new campus. I leave my house at 7.00am everyday, I reach the entrance to the main road leading to the campus by 7.30am latest, yet I reach my seat in class at 8.15am! It takes me upwards of 30 minutes to drive through a road less than 3km in distance, which is a major annoyance and source of irritance for me. I really can't understand how the people in charge of Taylors managed to neglect this aspect when planning the new campus.

On top of the extremely bad traffic conditions, matters aren't really helped by lack of a proper parking lot in campus. I mean, gravel parking lots which are occupied by stray dogs and cows, seriously? And to think that Taylors are thinking of charging the students for parking. Please, we don't mind paying for parking, even though by right we shouldn't be, but the least the management could do is to get real parking bays ready for us. By real parking bays I mean actual tarred roads, no sand and stone coupled with the faeces of stray dogs and the stench of cow dung in the air. Looking at it, the parking lot feels a lot like a slum.

The other source of annoyance is the cafeteria. Let me just put it this way; when you have 100 cows in your farm, with only one small patch of grass for them to munch on, things are going to get messy. Fitting in everyone into that small cafeteria, really daft in my opinion. True, they might say it's just temporary, but then why move us here when the facilities available aren't sufficient enough to cater to our needs? Why not wait another few weeks and have everything ready and good to go? I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I honestly think that everything about this move wasn't properly talked over and was conducted in a rush. Unfortunately, it's us students who have to suffer from all this.

Those are practically the only major downsides of the new campus. To be honest, I haven't had much more qualms as of yet, but maybe with a little more time here, I'd beg to differ. Lets see how the remainder of the week goes!