The University of Keele opened in 1946. The idea to provide university standard education in North Staffordshire had existed for a few years, although historical events prevented the University from opening until that year. The degree structure differs from other UK universities as the vast majority of students read a dual honours degree where two subjects are read simultaneously. You can therefore read subjects which provide opposite views of the same problem such as business Administration and Human Resource Management, or 2 that are completely different, such as Neuroscience and Geography. Crazy combinations are pretty normal there as I read Computer Science and Human Resource Management, while other people chose other combinations such as computer science and history, or history and economics. The only people who don't read two subjects are those students from the health faculty.

   Keele also has a cross-faculty requirement where all subjects are split into 4 faculties: health, natural science, social science, and humanities. Health faculty students are not subject to this requirement, but for other students they must have a cross-over between sciences and humanities, and so study additional modules in what is no referred to as the complimentary studies programmes. Although my degree in computer science and human resource management meets this requirement, I still had to study additional modules to have sufficient credits to pass the first year, as it is necessary to take 12 modules to pass the first year of the degree. Comp-sci provided 5, while HRM provided 4, so as I met the cross-faculty requirement with these subjects I could choose what other modules I wished to study. I therefore read a subsidiary course in management for 2 semesters, and my final modules was in statistics.

   I left Keele after three years with a 2:2 honours degree, having completed my dissertation in context-aware computing. This basically involved integrating dynamic data from a GPS satellite receiver into an application and use the data to trigger the display of information on a laptop computer, depending on where a person was within Keele University campus. This was based on a masters project from another University although they used radio transmitters to triangulate the position of the person to send them on a guided tour of the city.

   In September 2002 I returned to Keele as a postgraduate which taught me the true meaning of the word "intense". Accommodation was different as I was now living on a corridor and sharing a kitchen and bathroom with 5 other chaps instead of another 7. Myself and Ian were the only Brits, while Marco is from Germany, Junhind hails from Pakistan, Rock is from the People's Republic of China, and Asanka is from Sri Lanka. Quite a combination. You don't even want to know what the kitchen was like at meal times.