Living on campus or living off campus is a key question lots of students must face when they start university. Which are the advantages of halls of residence? And the disadvantages?
Which are the advantages of rented accommodation? And the disadvantages?
Which type of accommodation would you prefer? Why?
Self-study activity:
Watch this Manchester University video where some students tell us about the advantages of the halls and say whether the statements are true or false.
The activity is suitable for strong intermediate students.
1 Owens Park is the biggest halls in the University of Manchester.
2 Each student has their own kitchen.
3 It is not difficult to make friends if you live in halls.
4 There are lots of things going on at Manchester University.
5 There are no common spaces in the halls.
6 Everybody in your hall study the same degree.
7 Manchester University guarantees accommodation to first-timers.
8 International students are guaranteed accommodation only in their first year.
9 Students have their clothes washed if they live in halls.
The atmosphere in halls when I first moved in was very much, right we’re a new group of people, let’s go and meet each other, make friends, and we can go and take it from there.
I was in Owens Park, which is the biggest hall in the University of Manchester. We were just in a small flat, perhaps forty-eight of others I think it was and on over four floors, and that meant that you got to know everyone in your building very, very well and the buildings around you.
You’ve got a shared kitchen between eight of you and so you get to know each other really well, but then at the same time you are in a massive lot with hundreds of other students all mixed into blocks of eight.
I’ll tell you is the best place to make friends when you first arrive is the people from your building.
I used to hang around more with my flat mates, so we moved around in groups, go, go, go city wherever we go, we used to go together most of the time.
It does encourage you to mix with each other more, you share a kitchen and a living room and bathroom, and you get to know each other so much better, then just being stuck in a room on your own or in just a block of flats.
Living in halls really just sets you up for the rest of your stay in Manchester really because when you come here and you meet other people who are really in the same position as you are, so you, you make great friends.
Everyone is off into the same boat. The atmosphere is very much ‘right, let’s make friends, find somebody else, let me go and do something else’.
Everyone’s so excited to be away from home and be at university. There’s always something going on literally every night of the week.
We had a lot of socials going on, we had a room, a postgraduate room.
You have a Common Room you most halls spend a lot of your time with each other and you… in my halls we went for tea together as well, so every now and then we knock on each other’s doors for tea in five minutes, are you coming?
You get a knock on your door from someone you might not’ve met before and a group of people be going out.
I mean, being around so many people, you’re forced to speak to them, but that was the first stage, then it was a really nice time of the day, when you went back to the hall you could talk about your day, how is your day, how is your classes with other people doing different courses and from different cultures.
Coming to Manchester and knowing there was an accommodation guarantee was a huge weight off my mind. It wasn’t the same situation at every other university, and knowing that if I got into Manchester and could study here I was guaranteed a place in halls, that was a huge weight off my mind, it meant a lot less organization.
Every student is guaranteed accommodation the first year in the university, all international students are guaranteed accommodation throughout their stay in Manchester.
It’s pretty wonderful the halls experience, you have proper responsibility for yourself for the first time in forever, probably most people. Ok, it’s a bit of a pain to do your own washing, and cleaning your plates and stuff, but it’s so much better than having to follow somebody else’s rules, pretty much I mean obviously there are things that don’t make too much noise really at night or whatever, but within reason it’s just whatever you all agree as a group.
Key:
1T 2F 3T 4T 5F 6F 7T 8F 9F
