Sheffield Online - Where to look and 'Sheffield Made Us'

Where are the best places to go for information, news and opinions about Sheffield as a student?

A city with two universities, a massive student population and a revived, thriving cultural scene. So what are the best websites, blogs and twitter feeds to follow for Sheffield?

An exhaustive list would be pushing anyone's abilities, so I'll highlight the best I know - but please let me know of any other suggestions!

Sheffield Blog, of course, deserves a mention. With fairly regular updates it should be the online starting point for anyone coming to the city, including students. Be it bands, events or flash mobs, Sheffield Blog manages to cover most major events. It may not tell you all the latest news or about the politics of the city, but it offers interesting pieces on the past and particularly on music. Also has a useful map of free wi-fi hot spots in the city.

Most importantly, Sheffield Blog also has a considerable list of Sheffield Tweets, be they bars, university departments or local government.

For my part on Twitter with regards to Sheffield, I follow:
@FUSE_forgeradio (student radio)
@sheffielduni
@unsheffield (which was a creative and digitial industries conference which took place earlier in June)
@clicketyclicks (a student-run photography company)
@shftelegraph
@Forge_Media (student website and paper, the feed for which I helped set up)
@filmunit (student film society which presents films at the union for a very reasonable price)
@sheffieldunion
@sheffieldblog
@nick_clegg (who is also MP for Sheffield Hallam)

Obviously Facebook remains the primary organising tool for students in the city, as with any UK university. A brief history: facebook first hit Sheffield in 2006, when I was in my first year in halls. I joined in around March, and within a year it's coverage was pretty much complete. I get the impression it grew into an essential in Sheffield much faster than other unis.

Now, students are on facebook years before they come to University. Student-wise, I could name one person I know who isn't on it.

It's become essential for organising committees, events and for anyone running in student elections.

Having said this, that doesn't mean there aren't other useful sites for Sheffield. The Sheffield Union site highlights all the goings on, be they the latest campaign or club night.

With any luck, the Forge Today website, which was revamped this year, will become the focal point for student news in the city. Its potential is massive but it will require real commitment to be successful.

I've also found Sheffield Daily Photo an interesting take on the city. Barely a month old, it posts a photo a day from the city, sometimes taken with little more than a camera phone on the way to work. But the author manages to show unusual angles of the city and gives some history about buildings that you wouldn't give a second look to. You can follow them at @sheffieldphoto.

I'll confess to another reason for this post. It's a build up to a project I'm hoping to do. The University is running a competition, called 'Sheffield Made Us'. You can see a video about it through the link. It's a competition to make a video about the following:

How has the University of Sheffield helped you to Discover and Understand? Record a film showing us how your experiences at the University of Sheffield shaped you and you might walk away with £3000 - roughly equivalent to a year's tuition fees!

'To Discover and Understand' originates from the University motto Rerum Cognoscere Causas or, 'To Discover the Causes of Things' from Virgil's Georgics II, 490.

I've got the skills, I've got the software, and my have I got some ideas about this video. It's a maximum of three minutes long. How can I tell you about the city and the University in that time? Wait and see.

-For more of my photos of Sheffield, I've got a set of them on Flickr: