Orange Wednesday!

If anyone has the Orange mobile phone network and loves going to the cinema then this offer is definitely for you! They have a very good 'buy one, get one free' deal every Wednesday for their customers, and all you have to do is text FILM to 241, then they will reply with a code which you need to take with you to the cinema. They will ask you to read this code to them, and once you do this, you will get two tickets for the price of one! All 3 cinemas here in Exeter participate in this offer and i'll be using mine later to watch 'My Week with Marilyn'!!

Free Tickets for the Christmas Party still Available!!

Anyone who would like a Free Ticket to this Friday's International Christmas Party all you have to do is complete a questionnaire about St Andrew's day from the reception!! We still have a few free tickets left, but if you complete the questionnaire you will still be able to buy a ticket for only £3!! So don't miss out on this great end of term party!!!

A Night at the Movies?

Hello everyone!! If you love going to the cinema like we do then we thought it would be useful for you to know the selection Exeter offers! There are 3 main cinemas, the Odeon, Vue and the Picturehouse and they're all within walking distance of the city centre. The Odeon and Vue both play the more popular and mainstream kinds of films, whereas the Picturehouse cinema is more independent and international, and also has a very funky bar upstairs! 

If you have heard about the Phoenix Art Centre, which is behind Tesco at the end of Gandy Street, then you may know that every Wednesday they host the Exeter Film Society film screenings which are also similar to the Picturehouse choices. At the university there is a Campus Cinema inside Devonshire House which plays both contemporary films and classics 3 times a week. If you become a member (for the year which costs £15) you will be able to watch films for only £1.50 a ticket, if not then they're only £3.00 each which is still a bargain! It's also the oldest university campus cinema in the country so it's great top be able to support it! 

So if you feel like watching something on the big screen you have a lot to choose from, enjoy!

Oh Christmas Tree!

If any of you were around the INTO building end of last week then you will have already seen our fantastic Christmas tree! It was delivered on Friday, decorated and even had a mini official ceremony to switch on the lights! It stands at 13 feet high, and we're very lucky that it is a real tree this year. When the sun goes down and the building gets dark, it looks very impressive sparkling in the centre and is perfect for photographs...

Take a look at our Facebook page for more images from Friday!

End of Term Christmas Party!

Celebrate the end of term in style this Friday 2nd of December at Lemon Grove right here on campus!!

All students are welcome and students from the university are also invited as part of the new Urban Treats nights happening at the Lemon Grove!

The event will celebrate international music, people and culture and London Premier DJ Que will be playing!

Get your tickets from INTO reception, they're £4 each.  HOWEVER, also this week we are launching a St Andrew's Day questionnaire as part of our celebrations for St Andrews day which is happening this Wednesday 30 November.  Questionnaires are available from INTO reception and the first 10 of you to hand in your completed questionnaires correctly back to reception get a free ticket to the end of term party!!!  For the rest of you, hand in your questionnaire and get your ticket for just £3!

The doors open on Friday at 9am and the night will finish at 2am.

To get entry you will need to bring your ticket and INTO student card. 

Hope to see you there!

Bath Tickets Sold Out!!

Unfortunately all tickets for the Bath daytrip tomorrow have sold out!! So thank you to everyone who bought a ticket, we will see you bright and early at 7.45am! Keep an eye out here on the blog and also the noticeboards around the INTO Centre and Duryard for more information about future Saturday trips..

Tickets for Bath Christmas Market Trip Still Available!

If anyone would like to buy a ticket for the magical trip to Bath this weekend we still have some left at reception!! They cost £15 and include travel only, which is a very good price for this time of year, so don't miss out on this very rare and festive opportunity!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Remember if you fancy having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner today there are still tickets available for the lunch in the Terrace Restaurant in Devonshire House! They cost £7 and include a two course meal and free tea or coffee! So if you're free between 12pm-2pm that's the place to be - unless you are a turkey that is...

Our Beautiful Autumn Campus

Our university campus here in Exeter is well known for its beautiful scenery, and during this autumn season the colours on show are incredible! So here are some images taken recently for you to enjoy:

Keep up to date with Social Events Online!

Hello everyone! A good and easy way to keep informed about social events in and outside the university is to check out the events page online which you can access through your email account. Along the top of the page you will see a row of tabs ('My Files', 'IT Helpdesk' etc) and the one you need to select is marked 'Free Time'. Once you progress onto the next page you will see groups of categories which you can select depending on what information you want; cinema, theatre, music or sports. It's a great resource to have directly at your fingertips especially the 'events' section, which has all the information of activities within the university itself:  

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/events/

 

Another amazing online resource is the online noticeboard which you can access from here if you follow the link from the bottom right hand side of the page. It's a space for staff and students to advertise items to sell, as well as accommodation, tickets for travelling, a variety of things! So if you're wanting to buy or sell anything this is the perfect place to start from!

http://its.exeter.ac.uk/noticeboard/

Join our Facebook Group!

Another great way to read about what goes on at INTO Exeter is to become a fan of our Facebook page! It's regularly updated and has lots of information and photographs from previous activities we have held. It's also useful because many external people put advertisements there for different events; for example we have recently set up a deal with the Firehouse pub so that INTO staff and students can get free entry upon showing their Unicards! Because we have many previous, current and prospective students following the page it's a great way to communicate with anyone you would like, and to ask any questions about anything to do with INTO Exeter...

https://www.facebook.com/intouniversityofexeter

Exeter Museum will soon be open again...

I'm sure that most of you will have walked past this impressive building on Queen Street on your way into town a few times so far, well soon it will be open again as the Royal Albert Memorial Museum! It has been closed for the last 4 years due to a massive refurbishment and will be re-opening on December 15th. But before this there will be a very insightful talk in the university about the redevelopment of this building, which is taking place this Wednesday 23rd November in Lecture Theatre 2 inside Queen's Building. It's a free talk and begins at 5pm, the doors open at 4.30pm, and it will be a great opportunity to learn about the art and culture which the museum offers. 

For more information about this talk and the museum itself, have a look at their website: 

http://rammuseum.org.uk/

Christmas Light Switch On in Exeter!!

Hello everyone! As you can probably tell Christmas fever is starting to spread! Officially it begins this Thursday 24th November in the city centre with the lights being switched on in the High Street. It's a very popular evening and usually the whole of the city centre is packed full of people! The night starts at 5.30pm with street entertainment including local musician Jerri Hart who you may have seen singing jazz songs and playing the trumpet in town, and then at 6.30pm the Christmas lights are switched on my the Lord Mayor of Exeter. It's also the first night of late night shopping, so every Thursday until Christmas you will be able to shop until 9pm! 

In Princesshay Square which is the area near the funky stones which light up at night there will be a huge Christmas tree and also for the evening an ice skating rink, which after the night will return to the city again between 12th-31st December! 

Many shops will also have special offers just for the night and there are plenty of other activities happening around the city centre, so if you want to enjoy some festive fun this week this is where to start!

If you would like to know more about the Christmas and other events happening around the city, check out the Exeter City website

Study Chinese with INTO China Talk Postponed!

 

Because to lack of interest in the Chinese language course we advertised earlier this week the talk which was due to take place next Tuesday 22nd has been postponed to the new year! So don't worry it will still happen, but we are looking into advertising it within the main university itself to gather a greater number of students..so watch this space!!

Daytrip to Bath Christmas Markets!!

Saturday 26th of November sees our second daytrip of the Autumn term! We're going to the beautiful city of Bath, which is most famous for its Roman Baths, but also this time of the year its wonderful Christmas Markets! We visited the city earlier this year and saw the Abbey, the Crescent, the river and the amazing architecture in the Summertime, so this is a great opportunity to see Bath looking festive! 

If you would like to join this daytrip you can buy tickets at the INTO reception for £15 each. This includes transport only but is very cheap for this time of year! We are meeting on the 26th at 7.45am outside the INTO Building, and the journey will take around 90 minutes. Once we are in Bath you are free to do what you want, and we will have until 5.30pm which is when the coach will be returning to Exeter. So we hope to see you then!

If you would like to research Bath before next week check out this website:
 
http://visitbath.co.uk/

Our INTO Building

Hello everyone! We're very fortunate here at INTO Exeter to have a great unique new building as our home! It has been open only since January 2011 and the official launch was in May this year. The building itself is right in the centre of the campus opposite the almost completed Forum Project which is a multi-million pound investment in the university, and will provide a social space for students including cafes and shops.

The building is very distinctive due to the climate wall on the front, which is a vast window that reacts to light and controls the blinds inside. In the centre of the building there is a huge wooden structure called The Egg, which contains the Lecture Theatre and staff room, it's very impressive!

The building also has a very modern look due to the funky furniture and colourful walls, and the curves and angles provide great inspiration for photographs!

You can see these photographs and many others from INTO at our Facebook page, please feel free to 'like' us!!:
 

https://www.facebook.com/intouniversityofexeter

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Hello everyone! Because it's Wednesday and quite gloomy and wet outside it's a good time to write a fun post! The quote above is from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and it made me think about names, what they mean and why they are chosen. Last year a very entertaining email was circulated around INTO staff which contained a video from youtube about a reporter in Beijing interviewing people on the street about their English names if they had one. It's an really interesting portrayal of how cultures adapt to eachother and how they work side by side together, have a watch and see what you think!:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3U5u3D2L9Q

Would you like to study Chinese next Summer in China?

INTO China is offering a unique opportunity next summer to study Chinese in China! The course starts from a beginner or elementary level, runs from June, July or August and is between 4-12 weeks long. It also involves many cultural and social activities, and you will be studying in a leading university campus. If you would like to know more about this there will be a talk next Tuesday 22nd November at 6pm in the INTO Lecture Theatre, or you can find out more on the main website www.intohigher.com/china 

Tai Chi is Back!!!

Next Tuesday 22nd of November is the beginning of our free Tai Chi classes!! They will run weekly every Tuesday and take place between 5-6pm in Exercise Studio 1 in the Sports Park on campus, which is at the very top of the hill! The classes will be led by a professional Tai Chi teacher who has been practicing for 20 years so this is a very lucky opportunity for everyone!

INTO Notice Boards!

Hello everyone! Just to let you know one of the best ways to stay informed about the INTO social programme and other exciting events taking place (apart from this blog) is to keep an eye on the notice boards. In the INTO building there are 2, one by the reception and one in the cafe. If you are a student in Duryard then there is one in the corridor near Amy's office on the ground floor. They are all regularly updated so if you want to know what we have organised and what is happening in the university and Exeter take a look!

Thanksgiving Day!

Next Thursday 24th November is Thanksgiving Day! Although an American holiday it is still recognised outside the US, and Exeter University is celebrating it next Thursday with a traditional two course Thanksgiving lunch! It will take place in the Terrace restaurant in Devonshire House between 12pm and 2pm. You can buy tickets in advance which are £6 (£7 on the day) from room 153 in Northcote House between 9am and 12pm, or from the Terrace restaurant between 12-1pm. These advance tickets are available Monday 14th - Monday 21st November. 


Thanksgiving traditionally celebrated the harvest of the year, and always falls on the 4th Thursday of November. Presently in America it is an important holiday in which family members come together and celebrate over a huge roast dinner consisting of vegetables, potatoes, pie and most crucially a turkey! So to coincide with this the charity Exeter Food Bank will be collecting tinned food, tea, coffee or dried goods which you can donate on the day, and to share the spirit of thanksgiving :)

Children in Need 2011!

Children in Need is a charity which is organised by the BBC, and it was set up to raise money for children. It's an annual charity event which takes place all over the country, and the highlight of this is a live television show on the BBC. During this programme many famous celebrities participate with the aim of raising as much money as possible during the night, which last year was around £19,000,000! The mascot of the charity as you can see above is Pudsey Bear, so if you see him around this week this is why! Many people in the general public will be holding fundraising events to help raise money for Children in Need, and this Friday in the INTO building staff will be dressing up in clothes with dots on, like the scarf on Pudsey Bear!  

If you want to know more about this year's event check out the official webpage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/

Poetry Anyone?

Following on from the previous post we thought it might be interesting to let you know about the famous World War One poets! It's very common for students at school and college here in England to study the poems from soldiers who fought during WW1, firstly because they are very powerful pieces of writing and secondly the soldiers themselves were commonly teenagers and many died before the war ended. This website below is a good starting place if you would like to know more about this topic:    

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/firstWWarpoets.html

Remembrance Day

Tomorrow (the 11th of November) marks Remembrance Day, a special day set aside every year in which we remember people who were killed during the two World Wars and other conflicts. You have probably have noticed many people wearing these red poppy flowers, which are a symbol of remembrance and which all proceeds go to the Royal British Legion, a charity that takes care of war veterans. During the first world war (1914-1918) there was a very bad battle in Flanders in Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of soldiers died, and this flower was the only plant able to grow in the fields there. The 11th of November is significant because it saw the end of the First World War, so on this day the whole of the UK will have a 2 minute silence at 11am. Remembrance Sunday takes place on the Sunday nearest to the 11th of November, and on this day in particular special services are held in churches and war memorials all over Britain. If you go into the city centre this Sunday you will definitely see a memorial service at the cathedral, and at the university chapel there is also a service for students which starts at 10.45am. 

Welcome to our New Blog!

Hello everyone and Welcome to our new INTO Blog! After the success of our summer blog we thought it would be a great idea to set up another one because lots of exciting events still happen throughout the year, and also there is still a lot of very useful information for you to know about life in Exeter and the UK! Plus we will post about fun and interesting things, and even have guest bloggers! So we look forward to this next cyber chapter of INTO Exeter...