Student story: Leanda on building related issues

Quite literally fresh from finishing my essay, with so many acronyms and online library passwords swarming around my head that I was having trouble remembering my own name, I arrived at CAT for Module 2 – Building Related Issues. Thankfully Rachael, the Student Support Officer, was there to greet me and she, somehow, manages to remember everyone’s name.

I have never had to write an essay like the Module 1 essay before. In fact it’s been over 13 years since I finished my degree dissertation. What I planned to write, and what I eventually ended up writing were two very different things. It sort of evolved as I got into the researching of it, before finally finding some sort of valid structure. It will be much easier to write them in the future.

I had decided to stay out of the bar, for this module, as it was time to get more serious but strangely the long lecture days and then doing ‘bits and pieces’ in the evening still managed to stretch to midnight easily. There were even stories, from others, of staying up into the wee small hours trying to finish their essays and get on top of their presentations.

Module 2 was packed with lectures about producing low energy usage buildings and also undertaking energy audits. We had a couple of lectures from visiting professionals; Ashley Bateson of Hoare Lea gave us a lecture on ‘Delivering Low-Carbon Buildings’ and John Williamson of JPW Construction gave us a lecture on ‘Passivhaus’. It’s fantastic to get a perspective on how ideas are applied in the real world and the advantages and disadvantages involved. In fact, all of the lecturers have their fingers in a number of pies and their practical knowledge is constantly brought into our lectures.

We left site during this module, for a number of practicals to visit a Passivhaus and to assess the energy use of Plas; a community use building in the centre of Machynlleth. It was great fun to use a real building as an example and we also learnt a lot. The best bit was getting to see the workings of the boiler room. Gosh how my life has changed, I never imagined I would be admitting to that!

I had to do my presentation, this module. I’m really not great about thinking on my feet but it’s something that I will persist with and, with practise, will get better at. It gives you an appreciation of how good the lecturers are at presenting, and also how amazing the students with English as a second language, are for doing them. Sometimes I really struggle to find the words in English.

The group really bonded on this module. I guess we all sort of knew what to expect this time and felt more relaxed because of that. I got a chance to chat to those that I hadn’t before and those new faces, on the second year of their part-time course, got welcomed into that group also. I would say that the majority of the people on the course have been in the workplace for some time and that experience of life is brought into any discussion.

We were willing on each other during our presentations. Questions asked, were mostly from those who knew the presenter much better, which helped them to relax and to bring out their best. After all, we’re all in the same boat – it was lovely to experience the consideration involved.

This visit, I finally managed to donate to the experiment of feeding the Tiger worms. The high fibre, vegetarian diet has such a detoxing effect on your digestive system that I decided to help out with CAT’s research.

All in all, I had a really good time. There is one area, however, that requires some work. Although Saturday is officially a ‘school night’, it does lend itself to being the night to go out and let your hair down a bit. When you are sitting in lectures the next morning, after barely 4 hours of sleep and with vodka still in your system, letting your hair down a bit doesn’t seem like such a wise idea. Much improvement required there I think!