I think I understand why this university has the highest suicide rate of universities in this country – when it rains its a depressing place…and it seems to rain all the time. There are a couple of things which add up to give it a depressing air really, I recon: 1) there is the constant drone of the motorway (the M6) most places you go (admittedly I am on the end of campus that it goes closest to, but you can hear it over most of the site) – you don’t tend to notice it really as obvious, but if you listen you can hear it there, and I’m sure that it has some kind of psychological effect; 2) A lot of the buildings on campus are concrete or red brick build around paved areas (more on the other end of campus, to be fair, there is quite a lot of greenery on this end); 3) The whole place is a bit of a maze of passages and walkways which always seem to be dark (I guess that would be mainly because of the fact that they are surrounded by the buildings, so don’t get much natural light!); and then there is the rain. So far, in the week and a bit I have been here, it seems to have rained almost every single day. Alright, it didn’t rain today, but most of the other days it has rained at least once. When it does rain the place gets even more depressing. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of development going on (they are building a new science and computing building at one end of the campus, and seem to be doing something with the drains elsewhere), and you have a recipe for depression. [read more]