Accommodation at UCL

How do I make sure that my stay in UCL student accommodation becomes a good experience?

By Signe, Denmark. BA History with French, UCL

So, you have been offered a place at a top university in London and you’re waiting in excitement for what the city will show itself to be when you move there in the fall. Congratulations! While the daydreaming of London is only becoming more current, you will however still have to make some important choices — now is the time to consider where you will be living for the next academic year and whether student accommodation on campus will be something for you.

While some choose to rent private student accommodation or flats around the city, there are many great and cheap options to choose from within UCL student accommodation itself. I personally spent my first year at the university living in Frances Gardner Hall which ended up being a perfect fit for me, mostly because I had spent time reflecting on what my personal needs for the accommodation would be before submitting my application. Some of the questions I asked myself at the time you might benefit from asking yourself now: do you want many flatmates or only a few? Do you want an intimate atmosphere at your halls with room for privacy or a more communal experience?

In UCL, it was some of my friends’ experience that catered houses or larger student halls were great for parties, late-nights, fun dinners and events, whereas the self-catered halls with ensuites or further away from campus provided more privacy and a smaller community of flatmates. This last type of accommodation might be ideal if you intend to study at home quite a bit — in light of the pandemic affecting teaching and libraries to some extent next year, this might be something that you will have to consider as well. Will you need a larger room than usual in order to concentrate on studying, or can you study effectively in a workspace in your halls that might be smaller compared to elsewhere and shared with other people?

Of course, there is also the aspect of the financial cost of being in student halls. Those further away from campus might be cheaper, but then they also might be so far away from campus that you will have to spend money on public transport every day to get to class. Halls with ensuite rooms will also be more expensive, but if that is what you prefer to sharing one or two bathrooms with 15–20 other people, then maybe you will have to consider enlarging your budget in that area and tighten it somewhere else.

I am sure that the circumstances of the pandemic can have made life stressful enough as it is, so a good place to start is to slowly go ahead and organize your thoughts. My advice to you would be to make a mindmap and figure out the two most important things you want from your accommodation this year. Maybe it is being close to campus but in a more private hall where you can escape the business of the city, or maybe it is finding new friends and parties in a larger hall somewhere — no matter the cost. Finding the right accommodation for you will have to be a fine line of balancing your own interests with a reasonable amount of flexibility within your application, so by picking two points to focus on instead of getting every single option just right, you will probably end up on the other side of the whole process with a lovely option for student accommodation. In the end, I am sure that UCL will find a house or hall that suits your needs and that you will have a memorable experience living your first year away from home in a city as exciting and full of opportunities as London.

Lowlights

Living in halls can be uncomfortable. There is little peace and quiet, and you rarely find time between doing work and socializing to relax. Also, you have to adapt to living with new people, and flat conflicts are inevitable. Communal areas become dirty and flatmates can be excessively loud, but often a flurry of passive-aggressive texts on the flat group chat usually sorts it out. Also, with 12 people to 2 toilets, toilets are busy in the mornings and towards the end of the term can get a bit messy…

What I would have done differently

If I was living in halls again, I would try to meet as many new people as possible. Remember everyone is in the same boat so don’t feel awkward about asking for someone’s social media and reaching out to hang out, odds are they will say yes. It’s also important to keep up good habits for your physical and mental health. Tidy your room, hoover and wash your clothes frequently, it seems simple but you may prioritize meeting new people or studying, but don’t let this be at the expense of your health. I burnt out by November and was out of uni for a couple of weeks with freshers’ flu. Living in halls in Camden is a unique experience, so I urge you not to waste it.

Originally published at https://projectaccess.org on June 14, 2020.