Live in university accommodation or stay at home?

Live in halls. My uni (and city for that matter) is pretty **** for night life compared to home, but even so i know i would have missed a lot out from not staying in halls.

Part of lifes experiences so gogogo
 
Halls, regardless of what people say about not missing out by living at home, you will. Sure for nights out etc you meet up, but for things like just playing on the playstation with housemates or going for a quick drink at random during the day then you miss out.
 
Don't live at home. You will miss out on so much if you do. I had about 10 mates on my course, but loads that I met at halls who i still see on a daily basis 8 years on and two that i still live with.

On site bar, BBQs & drinks with 50 odd people by the river, house parties etc
 
Guest2 said:
Don't live at home. ...
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Or anywhere near home TBH.

University is just as much about experience (and no drinking to excess isn't the experience I mean...) as well as learning, becoming independent for example. You can't do that when living at home, and if you do study near home you'll probably end up at home most weekends anyway. I found the people that lived within an hour or two from home never really made many friends at uni as so many of them ended up spending almost as much time at home as uni. I had a couple of housemates that did this and they were much more people staying in your house rather than your housemates, they just never gelled as much with the rest of us.
 
Im a day behind but i though id add some first hand experience as im 3rd year at queens now and have seen a fair bit of it all.

Firstly you pretty much have to live in halls. Elms is one of the better halls of residence out there, not amazing and all the culchies run off home to take the cattle to market and other rubbish, but you miss out on so much travelling too and from Belfast each week.

Secondly I wouldnt be too put off by the prospect by living with other random people, most people will be in their first year too and wont know how to live with others so you'll all work it out and get along.

And finally, none of my best friends i made at queens do the same course as me, you'll probably find you'll enjoy the company of people that you done have just one regimented interest a lot more than those on your course as you wont have to talk about your course... (that's my own experience though as most northerners didnt enjoy talking to an english man about politics...)

Oh yeah dont knock the union too much, met some pretty awesome girls there too... ;)
 
Noisy nights, dirty kitchens/bathrooms/toilets/corridors, ignorant and immature neighbours; halls are great!!!

Probably the best way to make friends in the first year though tbh.
 
Definitely live in halls. I stayed in Elms in first year and loved it.

One annoying thing was that there were 11 people in a flat sharing one kitchen and also it's difficult to bring visitors back after 11pm as there is pretty tight security at the main entrance to the village.

I'm currently on my third year of computer science at Queens, when I was in first year, anyone doing a computing-related course did pretty much the same modules, including the games development students. There were about 250 students in most of the classes, so you won't have an issue meeting friends (who like to party) there :D
 
Halls, while living at home you won't necessary miss out on nights out you will miss out on the stupid bonding experiences of halls.

If you are in catered accommodation you will experience the constant mission to make you food taste of something ... anything. Our food was so bad, but it used to be a daily thing of going down to dinner (after Neighbours of course) working out what "treats" were on the menu and then moaning constantly about it.

The best things about halls is when you get cabin fever (normally around exam time) when you just need to let off steam. This will involve pranks. We removed everything from one girls room into the ensuite in a 5 minute gap while she went and made us all tea. Sliding down the stairs on someones mattress. Random nights out e.g. going down to the crazy golf course for middnight game, walking around the miniature village, with miniature vodka bottles pretending to be giants!

Halls all the way. Miss it greatly, would never do it again though. 1 year is enough.
 
Stay at home, I would have if it wasn't 100 miles away.

Halls' like to bang on about your personal freedom with getting away from home, but the reality is fire drills on Sunday morning, false alarms round the clock. A single ISP with low uptime, insane packet loss, low speed and insufficient separation from other users (man in the middle attacks are quite possible). A restrictive contract. Power Cuts. Access control failures...

It's hell, but it's cheap.


Edit: Oh, but pranks are fun. If it's going to snow, don't leave your window open, unless you want all the snow to be in your room.
 
Dude,

Live in and don't limit yourself with ideas of living at home or with 'home friends'.

The ones I knew who did live at home missed out on a lot and weren't really as much a part of things.
 
BigglesPiP said:
Stay at home, I would have if it wasn't 100 miles away.

Halls' like to bang on about your personal freedom with getting away from home, but the reality is fire drills on Sunday morning, false alarms round the clock. A single ISP with low uptime, insane packet loss, low speed and insufficient separation from other users (man in the middle attacks are quite possible). A restrictive contract. Power Cuts. Access control failures...

It's hell, but it's cheap.


Edit: Oh, but pranks are fun. If it's going to snow, don't leave your window open, unless you want all the snow to be in your room.
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That's why you should move straight into a house. I didn't get a hall room so had to go into a house from year 1, a bit annoyed at the beginning but after the first 6 months I was increasingly glad I didn't stay in halls.

Virgin TV and internet, no fire drills, large double rooms, front room and a few sofas! All for much less than halls! :D

EDIT: And I didn't have to move all my stuff out during the summer, 4 years of my own room, just taking out stuff I needed for home.
 
I hate to be a buzzkill here, but getting your degree is the most important thing, not living the life.

Anyway, some unis have student villages, which are less "3rd-world tower block of flats", and more comfortable houses shared between 4-8 people. Is what I did.

But degree > social life.
 
I agree entirely, to a point. If you're not happy at uni your work WILL suffer, which is why I'd always recommend going to a uni that you actually like the sound of the course and you like the uni/location itself. No point going to a "better" uni if you are going to hate it/the course.

Having said that living at home is going to affect uni work as well, you may end up not coming in for that hour lecture at 9am, or not bother to go to the group meeting etc.
 
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