Living in University Halls

Often, though, the uni experience living away is pot luck. Of my group of friends, a few of them got into brilliant houses and had a fantastic year. But two were stuck in an awful house with rude, inconsiderate housemates and had a thoroughly miserable year as a result.
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Indeed, I had a horrible time, and it's taken 2 years to find a nice house and nice people to live in it with :]

As for living at home with my mum.. well, meh, I get more freedom here than I have sometimes at uni. Can come and go as I please, do whatever I want, have whoever I want over. It all depends on circumstances as Fox says.

Oh, and about only taking a laptop? Heh, in the past I've taken 4 or 5 pc's, and a laptop, and a load of games consoles too >_> Doing a games/tech related course means they all get well used I assure you ;)
 
I find it really hard to believe anyone can find it hard to fit in at university and find some good friends.
Everyone is around the same age group as you and everyone is intelligent (non of the chavs that you find at sixthform/college), so you have enough in common to make friends with everyone, which is what most people do. Even if you dont do the normal studenty things (drinking, clubbing etc), you will still find hundreds of likeminded people that dont do this too.

I think those that don't find any friends at uni have some issues with themselves, more than purely being unlucky.
 
gurdas said:
Most people have laptops at uni, I took my tower and my laptop and found that I was using my tower for very little, only internet browsing and being hooked up to my speakers. So this year i've got rid of the tower and shall be using my laptop only.
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then do a lot of people have games? or play game? what do you do for fun?
apart from seeing friends and stuff
 
shimy182 said:
then do a lot of people have games? or play game? what do you do for fun?
apart from seeing friends and stuff
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Dont take gurdas' comments to seriously, not everyone is as cool as he is :p
.some of the guys down my corridor used to play counterstrike/bf2 matches all the time. You can do what you like in your spare time, nobody is going to judge you. I met loads of people with uber towers in their rooms with the flashy lights, its not really uncommon. Laptops are more usual, but the people who have them obviously arnt computer enthusiasts.
I bought my XC cube (minipc), a 19" widescreen TFT and the the logitech z-5500 speakers. I dont think I would have benefitted from having a laptop.
Being able to watch a movie on a rainy friday night in your room with 5.1 surround every once in a while is nice.

No warez

Gilly
 
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shimy182 said:
then do a lot of people have games? or play game? what do you do for fun?
apart from seeing friends and stuff
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In the first year I didn't play that many games beyond a few games of counterstrike and C&C on pc over the network. Did play quite a lot of ps2 and xbox though. In general I was far busier going out to have time to play games, so I wouldn't worry too much.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I was just disagreeing with the statement that its always inferior - it isnt.
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It actually is inferior, unless you have done it you won't understand.

shimy182 said:
then do a lot of people have games? or play game? what do you do for fun?
apart from seeing friends and stuff
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You don't really want to be stuck inside playing games, the odd few people had pro evo on ps2 but that was as far as it went really. For fun, when I was in my room, usually watching dvds with friends but apart from sleeping, doing a bit of work and something else (;)), my room was used very little. Fun outside of the room during the daytime involved having lunch with various people, meeting up in the pub, and a lot of shopping on oxford street.

50/50 said:
Dont take gurdas' comments to seriously, not everyone is as cool as he is :p
.some of the guys down my corridor used to play counterstrike/bf2 matches all the time. You can do what you like in your spare time, nobody is going to judge you. I met loads of people with uber towers in their rooms with the flashy lights, its not really uncommon. Laptops are more usual, but the people who have them obviously arnt computer enthusiasts.
I bought my XC cube (minipc), a 19" widescreen TFT and the the logitech z-5500 speakers. I dont think I would have benefitted from having a laptop.
Being able to watch a movie on a rainy friday night in your room with 5.1 surround every once in a while is nice.

I, and loads of other people spent hours watching things like lost, the oc, southpark, etc that we'd downloaded from the filesharing network. I have about 300GB of TV programs on my hard drive!!
After the first semister exams, I completed an entire season of 24 in two days!
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Well I had my watercooled project computer with me and would say a laptop is still the way to go, well for me it was. But then I don't use my PC to play games so you may have a use for a desktop pc.

SoSolid said:
Has anybody here studied at Kings College and stayed in the great dover street apartements?
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I have a lot of friends who stayed at GDS, anything in particular you would like to know?
 
50/50 said:
I disagree, having done both. hall life is clearly better!
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Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnt - which is my point.

One of my friends had such a bad first half of the year in the filthy house with disgusting housemates who were rude and inconsiderate that she ended up moving back home despite having paid the rent in advance and losing it all - basically renting a room she wasn't using.

Like I said, it all depends on individual circumstances, you cannot say that living out always > living at home any more than you could say living at home > living out.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnt - which is my point.

One of my friends had such a bad first half of the year in the filthy house with disgusting housemates who were rude and inconsiderate that she ended up moving back home despite having paid the rent in advance and losing it all - basically renting a room she wasn't using.

Like I said, it all depends on individual circumstances, you cannot say that living out always > living at home any more than you could say living at home > living out.
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Fox has a very god point, where ever you are living it is the people you are with that makes it.

Living at home has 1 advantage, you know what it is going to be like, and that is constant. Living in halls with people you don't know has the risk of ranging from the best time of your life to hating everyone's you live with's guts.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnt - which is my point.

One of my friends had such a bad first half of the year in the filthy house with disgusting housemates who were rude and inconsiderate that she ended up moving back home despite having paid the rent in advance and losing it all - basically renting a room she wasn't using.

Like I said, it all depends on individual circumstances, you cannot say that living out always > living at home any more than you could say living at home > living out.
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That is unlucky but that can always be improved, you can get new accomodation.

What sort of things did your friend experience?
 
gurdas said:
You don't really want to be stuck inside playing games, the odd few people had pro evo on ps2 but that was as far as it went really. For fun, when I was in my room, usually watching dvds with friends but apart from sleeping, doing a bit of work and something else (;)), my room was used very little. Fun outside of the room during the daytime involved having lunch with various people, meeting up in the pub, and a lot of shopping on oxford street.
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Me and one of my mates played loads of stratagy games over the network. Its good fun. Pro Evo on the PS2 is way better though as it means anybody can join in. Infact, it was probably one of the reasons that i'm living with the guys i am next year because they spent so much time in my room!
 
gurdas said:
What sort of things did your friend experience?
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The kitchens were filthy dirty, mouldly, and smelt disgusting. She resorted to keeping her food in her room, along with her cutlury. The lounge was apalling - takeaways which were days old, just left around. The smell was horrible throughout the entire house. Nobody ever cleaned up. Half the house felt it was acceptable to listen to drum and bass at loud volume at 4am. Nobody ever listened to complaints. She complained to the landlords numerous times, but all they ever did was send out warning letters.

It was awful.

Other friends, however, had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed it - it depends entirely who you live with, if you get to chose, ace, if you take pot luck, good luck.
 
Well I had my watercooled project computer with me and would say a laptop is still the way to go, well for me it was. But then I don't use my PC to play games so you may have a use for a desktop pc.
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OT but what are you doing with a watercooled PC since you're not gaming? Surely there is nothing else that would actually test it! :confused:
 
[TW]Fox said:
Other friends, however, had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed it - it depends entirely who you live with, if you get to chose, ace, if you take pot luck, good luck.
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I couldn't agree more. Even at the halls I was staying in for my first year, it was pretty evident who wasn't happy living there out of my friends.
I had pretty decent flat mates, everybody was laid back and things were always casual and friendly. It was the sort of environment where everybody knew what was acceptable, and were tolerant of each other, to an extent.
A friend of mine however had totally opposite flat mates. They would knock on his door at 10pm on a weekend to complain that his music was too loud (it was never loud enough to disturb someone in the next room had they been doing something like watch TV), and they would constantly take his food and not replace it. Needless to say, I loved staying in halls, whereas he hated it.

Just hope you guys get decent flat mates :)
 
SoSolid said:
Has anybody here studied at Kings College and stayed in the great dover street apartements?
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GF is studying physio at Kings and lived there. Enjoy the rats ;)

Seriously though, it's not too bad. The rooms are tiny, but well equipped, the kitchens are quite large and decently equipped. If you have a sociable flat, I could imagine the kitchen being great, but all of nic's mates were on different courses/ were never in etc and you might have the same issue. The Roebuck pub over the road has a great quiz too ;)

At RHUL, my halls were absolutely stonkingly great :D The building itself and the rooms were a bit dated, but it was basically 22 of us in a big house arrangement sharing two kitchenettes. We were catered acc, but PAYG and had a microwave in each kitchen if we wanted to cook. As with all things uni though, it was the people I lived with that made things so good (and the uni bar being two minutes away helped too). Ultimately though, living on campus has its limitations so 4 of us from the house have moved in together off campus.
 
willd58 said:
Uhhh, im doing it for my second time this year, and I can easily see why it would be inferior, your experiance alone doesnt dictates how everyone else will find it kid.
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I may have misunderstood so please dont jump on me here but from the sounds of it, you have ONLY done it from home? What I believe he's saying is you need to have lived in halls AND from home to fully appreciate the difference. (possibly?)
 
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