THE TRUTH ABOUT UNI: ACCOMMODATION

When it came to pick accommodation for my first year in uni, I knew exactly what I was going to pick. Because my campus is small, there is no accommodation on the campus, so the majority of people chose to stay in one of the Unite Students buildings in the city centre.

 View from my flat in halls

In my first year, I lived at Marketgate, known for it's wild parties, it was the cheapest accommodation in the city centre, and all bedrooms had an en suite (which if we're honest is the best thing in the world). The majority of the bedrooms are 'premium', meaning they had 3/4 beds, which is what I ended up getting. The price was pretty expensive, costing around £135 a week, but I would honestly recommend Marketgate to anyone!

In the summer before I moved to uni, I found out everyone I would be living with on Facebook and we had a group chat which we used to get to know each other, which I really liked as it made me less nervous to move in.

I got on really well with four of the people I lived with, and even a year on, they are some of the best people I could've lived with in first year. I actually loved how close we were, and me and two of the boys used to watch films or play fifa basically every night together. We also used to go down to the communal room where there was a pool table, ping pong table, a TV, and foosball table (but not as much as we should have probably).

Showing my skills

I also loved the fact that a lot of other people you know from halls and from your course live in the same building, so there's always someone around for you to hang out with!

Whilst living in halls, I struggled a little living with people who had different levels of cleanliness to me, but luckily it was only the kitchen/living area that we shared, and we had a cleaner that used to come every other week.

An example of the mess in halls

This year, I am living in a student house with 5 different people (who I'll be staying with next year in the same house too). When I moved in, I only knew one person really well, Georgia, who was on my course. It definitely has a completely different feel than halls did, and I would say I'm not as close to them as I was with the people I lived with last year.

Also, with people used to having a cleaner come every other week, cleaning became a major issue in our house, which resulted in a cleaning rota being made. And just like you'd expect, it doesn't really work that well, but it does help divide up work load a little. The main problem I'm facing this year would probably be people chipping in and buying things we need as a house like toilet roll and washing up liquid as some people definitely don't help with that.

For anyone heading to university, I would 100% recommend living in halls during your first year, and even though you may be completely different to the people you live with, it's great to mix with people from all over the country with different backgrounds. Uni accommodation is never going to be the prettiest of places you'll ever live, so I would also definitely bring decorative things to help give it a more homely feel to it! And remember that you'll never get your first year moving out to halls back, so definitely make the most of it!