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anyone had halls as their only home?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
unfortunatly, this is going to be my situation, and thus i think it's going to make things quite difficult for me.
has anyone else not had a second home i.e. parents, family ect, whilst living at uni?
has anyone else not had a second home i.e. parents, family ect, whilst living at uni?
Post edited by JustV on
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Couple of things that spring to mind that might make things easier. Look for halls that offer year round accomodation, ideally ones that are fairly obvious about having year round accomodation. That way there will be more people around in the holiday.
When you get to uni, find a bit out about the stuff for international students. I know you're not one, but from the holiday point of view you are in a very similar position to them.
Another stumbling block that springs to mind is what to do with any belongings etc you have. Don't know whether you have any of your own furniture in your flat at the moment, but dealing with that in halls could be a bit tricky.
It might be worth getting in touch with the students union welfare, and the uni welfare people, and maybe the accomodation team too and chatting to them about it. I know you don't know where you're going yet, but just pick a couple of unis you might be interested in. Generally they are more than happy to talk around the subject, and while you don't know of anyone else in similar circumstances, I'm sure you'll find one of them that's dealt with something similar before.
xx
i've not got much furniture, an ikea bookshelf, but i've got a 1 bed flat full of stuff, and i don't really know how i would get all of that into 1 room. And i don't want to get rid of a lot of it...i think i need to have a good look at the accomdation. otherwise, i'm not so sure what i can do, because finding short term rents is difficult, and expencive. My only other option is to find a small crappy flat to rent all year...but it has to be a max of £90 a week
A lot of uni's have a things where you can find housemates to fill rooms in student houses. Getting that for less than £90 a week would be easier, and once you get into a student house people tend to spend a lot more of the year there. Generally they are 2/3rd years in houses rather than halls, but not exclusively.
That might be something to look into, might work better than a crappy flat on your own, yet not be as restrictive as halls.
Do you need all the stuff you've got though?
How about storage?
I had halls as my only home, and one of the problems was with room inspections and banned items. I had a little blow fire and some decorative candles (which I didn't even burn), which were confiscated. They treat you like a kid. And there are constant fire alarms.
Yeah, but i think you get to meet a lot more people and it's a lot more sociable in your first year if you do go into halls - i knew a few local people on my course at uni and they said that they felt they'd missed out on a lot of university 'experience' by not living on campus or in halls.
shared housing i think is going to be my only option. It's going to be quite a shock after living on my own for over a year...
why?
Nearly all student houses have to be rented on a 52week a year basis so i'm sure you will have no problem at all finding someone willing to sub-let their room to you during the holidays.
you'll find a lot of foreign students will be in the same situation as you nearly, in that they often wont be able to go home for breaks / summer while at uni as it's just too expensive.
it'll be a bit of a pain moving in/out at the end of semesters, but other than that I think you'll be fine. you'll soon make up a network of social support around you, and if not there's plenty of support to be found with aware and nightline etc. everyone needs someone to turn to now and again.