Today was a rather eventful day. As I previously mentioned in my blogpost from yesterday, two of my friends and I travelled to several different universities in the area on a recruitment mission to get the word out that we're looking for some programmers. The universities we travelled to were Reading University, Southampton University, Solent and Portsmouth university.
The day started early (for me) at 8am, being in a rush trying to print out some contact cards, something I had forgotten to do the previous days. Which is quite ridiculous, but let's continue. We then continued the day by checking into "Big Tescos" for breakfast, fuel and drawing pins, something I had forgotten in my planning stage (another thing?!) and got on our way.
First stop, Reading University. Greeted on entry by a security guard it suddenly dawned on me that this may be something that universities frown upon, but I wasn't going to let it get in the way. As it happened, we were on the last day of visitor parking, so we didn't need a parking permit (luck win?). As I expected the first stop at Reading seemed a little awkward. We hadn't really had a chance to prepare because we weren't too sure on what to expect, so we just rolled with it and waltzed into the reception at White Knights campus, asking about job boards and directions to the Computer Science department.
Turns out that a job board type facility was available at the Student Union, so we wandered off there to see what we find. Turns out we definitely aren't allowed to just go round the university. Which was quite awkward. Shot down with statements like "I'm surprised you guys haven't been thrown out yet.".
Interesting.
So that development kind of put us all on edge. We knew that it may be a bit of a funny situation, but hadn't really thought of being chucked out. But if we did, I suppose it would have been totally rock'n'roll and would probably of helped sell the name.....
We then got lost.
But arrived in an area surrounded by hopeful sounding places such as "IT Services" and "Electronic Engineering", but couldn't seem to find a "Computer Science" block. So we had to ask.
On arrival, the place seemed huge and just started putting up leaflets with tear-away contact slips attached on as many notice boards as possible. We were hopeful there would be some students knocking about that we could have a quick chat with, but turns out that no students hang out there. It was dead. Only a suspicious looking janitor wandering up and down the corridor with ever-changing cleaning products in his hand.
We then started journeying down to Southampton, where we stopped at Winchester services and completely n0mmed a set of Burger Kings at extortionate prices.
As we drove up to the University campus, we had difficulty finding a parking space that wasn't private or permit holders only, but were fortunate enough to find a space opposite Brewed something, a cafe on the edge of the campus. Just so happens that the space leads directly to the Computer Science areas and continued our leafleting.
The doors were all keycard protected. Bummer! Somehow, through extreme luck, a student (perhaps?) was waiting by the door and was friendly enough to let us through. Southampton university has tight security..
We snuck around and placed a load of leaflets again and left sharpish, as the tutors seemed scary and had concentration faces on. Outside we spoke to a few students and hopefully they have followed us onto this blog? Hello if you have!
SOLENT UNIVERSITY. Well we didn't stop there long.
Portsmouth. Another struggle! But we found the place and posted some leaflets before we got ushered off by security.
By this time, it was too late to hit the other universities such as Bournemouth and Surrey so we headed home. Back to Sandhurst!
Let me just take this moment to introduce you to the man in the middle. Daniel Pither. If you decide to follow this blog, I'm sure you will be hearing things about him..
-Jack
Director/Art Director
