Attention Students! The Great Student Lock-In is Here…

Students! What are your plans for Wednesday 2nd October between 18.30-21.00? Oh really? Cancel them. Yes, cancel them.

This Wednesday, the infamous Student Lock-in® is set to return to Princesshay Shopping Centre for its third successive year! What’s that you say? Well, come 18.30, the shopping centre will close to everyone except students from Exeter and the surrounding area, where you can enjoy discounts from over 30 shops and restaurants including Topshop/Topman, Superdry, Schuh, New Look and River Island. On top of that, there will be several promotions going on, such as a nail file and polishes for just £5 from The Cove and a delicious chorizo special from Chandos Deli cooked from scratch underneath the glass canopy in the main mall. To round it off, there will be a DJ truck, “creating a party atmosphere for students and retailers involved.”

Extra note: “Candy Kitten’s, fashion and confectionery company owned by Jamie Laing (from Made in Chelsea) will be taking centre stage offering tasters, photos and freebies.”

Image Credit: onevoicemedia.co.uk

Centre Director at Princesshay, Wayne Pearce, had this to say: “The Student Lock In is a fantastic event where our retailers switch their tills to ‘crazy discount mode’ offering up to 25% off for one night only. We have more retailers and restaurants involved than ever and hope students really enjoy the event and come back and visit us again soon.”

Excited? So you should be. To get involved, pre-register at http://www.studentlockin.com, and then be prepared to show your registration code and a valid student ID on the night to get involved! Hopefully see you there!

But now then, more specifics.

Are you ready? Here are the confirmed discounts so far…

• Carphone Warehouse – 10% off accessories bought alone

– 20% off accessories when purchased with handset (pay as you go and pay monthly)

– 30% off accessories when bought with home broadband

– 50% off accessories when bought with handset and a broadband connection.

• Cath Kidston – 20% off all full price

• Chandos – 10% off

• Coal Grill and Bar – 2-4-1 on selected cocktails

• Coast – 20% off all full price

• Crew Clothing – 20% off all full price

• Dorothy Perkins – 20% off all full price

• Fat Face – 10% off

• Gap – 20% off

• HMV – 10% off CD & DVDs

• Hotel Chocolat – 10% off all purchases

• La Tasca – 2 for 1 on tapas dishes to share

• Molton Brown – 20% off all full price

• Nandos – 3 chicken wings free with minimum £6.00 spend. Not to be used

with any other offer. Valid for eat in or takeaway. Offer consists of 3 wings

only and does not include side orders or drinks.

• Neals Yard Remedies – 20% off

• New Look – 20% off

• Nike Running – 20% off everything (except socks and accessories, nutrition

and Nike +)

• Oasis – 20% off all full price

• Reiss – 10% off

• River Island – 20% off

• Saks- 10% off retail products including GHDs and Keratase range.

• Schuh – 20% off all full price – find out more by going to their website here.

• Superdry – 20% off

• Swarovski – 15% off

• The Cove – 10% off all products. 15% off beauty treatments booked and paid

for on the night (can be booked for future dates). £5 file and polish on the

night.

• Topshop/Topman – 20% off

• Two Seasons – 20% off all full price

 

Ben Gilbert, Online Lifestyle Editor

Exeter’s Biggest spend: The Forum

Naomi Politer and Screen Editor, Megan Furborough go head to head to debate the merits and problems with the Forum. First, Naomi argues in favour of the Forum and then Megan argues against it.

I am not going to lie, I think the Forum is a beautiful, wonderful, and well… dope place; I will happily elaborate on why. Firstly the library: I marvel at how wide the range is in books and subjects, and how at any random time of the day you can go in there, pick a book of whatever subject you crave and just read. It is also hard to imagine how Exeter ever made it with less study spaces because even with the masses of chairs and desks it now contains, I often find myself roaming up and down the floors looking for a table to study at. Nonetheless study space in the library is great; especially if you wander to the far end of the bottom floor and intrude on the law library.

” When I picture Exeter in my head, after the halls, the brilliance of the Forum comes to mind. It has become the heart of the University.” Image credit: University of Exeter

Secondly, the Forum is a great social hub. I find reassurance in the idea that after a long day you can walk through the Forum and almost always see someone that you know and chat away since so many people are there for different reasons. There is always noise in the forum, and there’ll be bake sales, music, and a general crowd of people, which never fails to make me happy.

The amount of food you can find in all the different food outlets is also remarkable. The curry on Tuesdays in the Terrace Restaurant, and the extremely fresh sandwiches of the Kitchen Café on the second floor of Devonshire house. Then there’s the wraps at the kitchen Deli and the salads of the Market Place. Lunch at the Forum, if I’m having a busy day, is not a disappointment.

And well lastly, I like The Forum because it stays open all the way through the night and it’s always a good place to stop by after The Lemmy on a Saturday night. There are probably one too many stories about drunken students walking through the bookshelves (which turn into a labyrinth) of the library and finding it absolutely hilarious that they are interrupting the people that are studying at such uncanny hours as 3 on a Saturday night. A student library wouldn’t be a student library without that.

In conclusion: I think the Forum has become the heart of the University, and when I picture Exeter University in my head, after the halls, the brilliance of the Forum is what comes to mind.

Naomi Politer

 

Just under a year on from the opening of the £48million forum, I think on it with little more than fond indifference. Sure it was all very exciting when the Queen came to open it and we got to play ‘spot the sniper’, but other than that I doubt whether many students would say that the Forum has actually improved their learning experience. The most I can really say is that I like the swivel chairs in the Auditorium, and I appreciated the proximity of the Market Place, and their Creme Egg deals, to my Friday 9am seminar last term.

The fact that everything is connected under one roof is probably The Forum’s most useful asset, especially considering how much rain we’ve had, but you would think that the amount of money (and dirty money at that) spent on this building would have rendered it more than just a glorified walkway.

The design of the forum, whilst incorporating a pretty swanky roof, does not allow for a large amount of people at any one time. There’s benches at inconvenient spots around the Market Place and the random row of trees that block the view from one side of the Forum to the other are crying out for some air that hasn’t been recycled through dozens of stressed students. Because of the congestion it is incredibly noisy in there, making serious work impossible in the spaces outside of the library – and that’s if you can even get in without encountering door problems, leaking roofs, trapped seagulls and hundreds of perspective students milling around on open days.

Similarly, the Costa and newly opened AMT coffee are great in theory, but the queues are always horrendous and I can’t help but wonder why so many university services, like Queen’s Café, would close only to open another branch of an over-priced chain.  As a student living in the already costly Exeter I feel that the replacement of affordable independant branches with expensive brands is missing a trick, and it seems like a wasted opportunity to have a cheap, student-friendly coffee shop in that space.

Really the main thing about the Forum is just how little it crosses my mind day-to-day.  Its problems are annoyances you learn to live with, and it’s simply become part of the campus scenery now, especially for those that have never known the university without it.

If it went, I might miss it, but only when I’ve forgotten my umbrella on a rainy day.

Screen Editor, Megan Furborough

Does the Forum represent good value for money? Would purchasing Fernando Torres have been a better deal? Leave a comment below or write to the Comment team at the Exeposé Comment Facebook Group or on Twitter @CommentExepose.