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After eldest has 'issues' with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years, I've just dropped off youngest and feel rather annoyed at another university.
Halls.
Poorly maintained, feels unloved and cheaply run. Filthy carpet in his room and strongly smells of damp.
Kitchen with cupboards barely hanging on and multiple repairs.
Bathroom with all sorts of dodgy MDF repairs instead of properly tiled.
Grey carpet, pink walls, grey woodwork and wood chip everywhere. So '1970' hospital' vibe.
Peeling paint on all the outside woodwork.
The storage room promised is locked - and they think it's a mistake to have it on the listing as no one uses it but the maintenance people. 'Bike storage' is four Sheffield stands for over 100 students.
Not a picture or mirror in the building. And you can't put your own up.
WiFi and ethernet cable not working today.
Small amount of gravelly outdoor space full of weeds and nowhere to sit.
Collect the keys elsewhere in town. No one at the halls. No maps to find your way around the halls.
No recycling information or how your heater works. One phone number on a small bit of paper with phone number for an 'RA'(?) who works evenings only.
No 'welcome to your home, we hope you like it, why not come to the common room to meet some new people' effort at all - and we only found the common room by accident searching for the storage, his flatmates didn't even know there was one!
At least the common room had been refurbished and felt lovely, really nicely done. Oh, and a local charity group left a plant for each flat to share and look after.
But seriously. They're clearing £600k across 89 rooms in one 1980/90's built hall, £6750 each a year. And they can't even clean the room properly.
FFS Edinburgh Uni.
The teaching better be top notch.
One main thing going to Uni taught me was to the Uni students are an inconvenience and they would much rather not have them!
Attending university isn't compulsory. Tell the lazy bastard to get a job!!
Attending university isn’t compulsory. Tell the lazy bastard to get a job!!
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Thank God LittleMissMC resisted our encouragement to apply to Edinburgh when we were up there a couple of weeks ago, though we did fancy popping up to visit.
Been to an open day at Bath uni today - slightly dated but solid rooms with shared bathrooms, or an extra £50 a week got you a more modern ensuite - smaller room, from which they'd taken a chunk for the ensuite.
She decided she'd sooner share a bathroom and drink the £50 a week
When I was a student back in the 70s the hall I was in was damp and had dodgy electrics. The result of many, many serious water fights.
My ? was actually a laughing emoji.
Scotroutes knows the score...
IDK, #1 child finished at Essex this year. Lovely campus. Nice accommodation. Even year 2 in an outside house but through some university control was OK.
#2 goes back to LJMU tomorrow. Accommodation the past 2 years has been OK. Not perfect, but tolerable. And they’ve raised maintenance requests when needed. These have been fulfilled to typically English standards.
I’d note that accommodation and tuition are independent things.
Edit. The welcome at LJMU each year has been better in terms of information and freebies than I got at manchester in the 80s. The welcome at Essex was encouraging each year.
Maybe Edinburgh doesn’t think it has to try? But I see Manchester is changing its Owens Park accommodation and there are many blocks of seemingly luxurious (by 1980s standards) accommodation available.
I've stayed in the halls at Bath, had a bit of a pressure washer friendly vibe about it. Seen far worse places that didn't.
After eldest has ‘issues’ with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years, I’ve just dropped off youngest and feel rather annoyed at another university.
Interesting gripe. What do they did about it? All universities seem eager to improve. All English universities seem to seek feedback and rely on student ratings of quality.
My first year halls were so bad that they were demolished a year after I graduated. They were a wreck wehn I was there.
We saw this as a good thing, we didn't really have to look after anything, so one minded if we rode bikes down the stairs, or drew chalk outlines of corpses on the carpets or spent sunny days chilling up on the roof or having water fights or whatever. People who lived in nicer halls paid more and had to be really careful with them, they had much less fun
It was considerably cheaper in my day though...
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Sorry Scotroutes.
Back from Salford. Tale of two different types of accommodation. New halls are ace. Sadly, my youngest is in the older halls… filthy and quite frankly not suitable for occupation. Still, I’m sure they’ll make the most of it.
Salford - I stayed in halls there in the 90s. Absolute dump, built in the 70s, but demolished since.
Salford itself was a shithole in the 90s - but from everything I've heard seems to be doing a lot better these days!
I work at a uni now (an ex poly) and the student halls are (genuinely) pretty good. The newest block is fully passivhaus certified, which is very cool. It's still alarmingly expensive, but that seems to be the way of things now. They insist that they don't really make a profit on it, but... Surely they must, at those rates? Or will do, in time...
Interesting gripe. What do they did about it?
They lost 60% if the masters course, who all dropped out at grad level.
Complaint action? He's no aware of any action, and certainly no reply to his last email halfway through final year to head of course.
No, Mansfield Hall at Reading. Not the nice Victorian building at the front, the dodgy 60s one behind it.
I thought I'd got lucky when I arrived and saw the nice building, and then whoever it was doing the meeting and greeting said 'I'll show you to your room' and it went downhill from there
https://www.google.com/maps/ @51.450005,-0.9640981,176m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
That's the new one. It didn't have courtyards and things when I was there, just mushrooms in the bathrooms
This is in the weekend's Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/sep/07/rats-mould-damp-uks-biggest-student-homes-provider-faces-legal-action-over-poor-accommodation
Sounds like a lot of students are getting exploited in their accommodation.
At the other end of things, here in Cork you can get a room for €12k upwards for 38 weeks!!!, It may well be nice and new with a cinema and gym, but €12k+ just for your accommodation! And note the even more expensive rooms are all sold out.
Poorly maintained, feels unloved and cheaply run. Filthy carpet in his room and strongly smells of damp.
Kitchen with cupboards barely hanging on and multiple repairs.
Bathroom with all sorts of dodgy MDF repairs instead of properly tiled.
Grey carpet, pink walls, grey woodwork and wood chip everywhere. So ‘1970’ hospital’ vibe.
Peeling paint on all the outside woodwork.
The storage room promised is locked – and they think it’s a mistake to have it on the listing as no one uses it
I can't see the problem,this is standard fare for( almost ) every student flat in our big cities. It will prepare him (and his new best friends)for the absolute joy of house hunting in the future years. -->> hoof scum landlords in the slats emoji <<-- 😉
Spent the first few weeks of my 2nd year sleeping under the desk in the bursers office with my flatmates since our new build flat wasnt finished. This was ok at weekends but a pita during the week when the burser came in at 0845.
This was in 1981
While I wholeheartedly agree that the provided accommodation should be up to a suitable habitable standard, speaking as someone who provides student support at university, you would not believe the level of squaller that a significant proportion of students live in when in student accommodation.
A surprising number of student have very little concept personal hygiene and the state that many of the rooms are left in is absolutely appalling, and the costs of cleaning and repairs to a high standard on a regular basis become prohibitive, especially as costs for universities have become further squeezed in recent years.
Personally i would prefer the fees to be spent on quality education than hotel quality rooms if the student can't be arsed to look after them.
I'll leave this quiz here.
https://thetab.com/uk/2018/10/04/quiz-is-this-bedroom-from-your-unis-halls-or-a-prison-83409
We've had the conversation with family and friends about universities. I feel the cost is extortionate, so unless you really need a degree for your chosen career, it seems like an excessive cost. Unfortunately we seem to have been conditioned to assume that going to Uni is the "normal" thing to do.
27 years ago when I went to uni it wasn't as bad as you didn't pay fees and things were generally cheaper. When I read about Universities going bust I struggle to understand, based on the fact that they're charging each student £6,000 a year.
Our eldest decided to forgo university as he felt that getting 50k in debt wasn't worth it. Fair play to him he got a proper job at 18 and now at 20 has bought a house and moved out. Don't tell him but I'm very proud of him 🙂
Unfortunately we seem to have been conditioned to assume that going to Uni is the “normal” thing to do.
He's had a year out.
He's had no pressure from us, and nearly went to Japan to work, but has chosen to go. His call - and his interests line up with the degree he is doing.
you would not believe the level of squaller that a significant proportion of students live in when in student accommodation.
This. Spent a summer cleaning 75 flats (each four or five room) in the student halls, back in the 1980s. Some were empty (but dirty), most were full of junk (some of which was actually worth salvaging) and quite a few were pretty much destroyed. One room was totally full of cardboard boxes, and every surface was covered in dust/grease from incense sticks. In many flats the lino tiled kitchen and bathroom floors were black and sticky, rather than the actual yellow colour. We used acid to clean the toilets, and often just replaced the seats entirely.
Young kids learning how to live can be pretty disgusting.
Its all part of the experience I have a second child going to Manchester Uni next week, did not get what she had chosen but my Son advised her best place to be is Fallow fields. I could be wrong but halls of residence is a big part of the uni experience and certainly where they will make friends and most probably party every night what more could you want.
There is loads of choice you could easily go private from £9k -£15k per annum.
Did the on line review reflect what you found?
There is loads of choice you could easily go private from £9k -£15k per annum.
Ah yes, of course more money = more privilege.
I'm disappointed, and think it errs on a social justice issue, that a Uni owned halls (which is a charity for the education of all) sees fit to provide less than well looked after halls.
I get it's not ensuite, that it is smaller, that it's not as cool.
But they've failed at the basics of clean, they said there were facilities which don't exist (secure bike storage), but they've provided parking for the wealthy..
It's disappointing.
Daughter is at one of the poorer colleges in Cambridge. The halls (large house) she was in last year was rented by her college from one of the wealthier colleges, at pretty much market rates- it's being pulled down this year due to the state of the structure. One of the things emphasised during look-arounds at Cambridge is that accommodation is remarkably cheap- you only pay for the weeks you're there, and rents are generally subsidised/capped by the colleges. My daughter applied for college A, was turned down, then pooled and received an offer from college B- which means we're paying north of £200 a week, for substandard accommodation and we have to pay it for the whole academic year, not just the weeks of occupancy. Grates, when other colleges have huge endowments and incomes, but are still pursuing elitist rather than egalitarian policies (this extends to other areas of life there).
If you don't like the state of university accommodation, lobby the government to review tuition fees that are currently worth 60% of what they were the last time they were reviewed.
Otherwise the institutions will bleed to death slowly, selling the family silver in the interim and losing the best researchers/lecturers to overseas.
It really is that simple.
IIRC there is a ongoing legal argument going on ab out Uni halls in that are they covered by the meager rental protections we have and standards for habitable rooms
Many of these would simply be illegal to let to non students again IIRC
SS20 you can tell your daughter The Young Ones was based on the members of a household half way along Landcross Road.
After eldest has ‘issues’ with non existent and poor teaching for the last four years
Phew - you mean uni, had me worried for a while.
I was at Edinburgh but was lucky. Unfortunately the awesome house that we shared got sold off by the university alongside the neighbouring Graham Brown House - home of the mountaineering club. One set of halls there was demolished and rebuilt by the time I returned to have another go at being an Edinburgh student.
I saw a news story that one of the new accommodation providers which has blocks all over most university cities was being accused of mouldy substandard accommodation.
All the best for the coming years.
My daughter applied for college A, was turned down, then pooled and received an offer from college B- which means we’re paying north of £200 a week, for substandard accommodation and we have to pay it for the whole academic year, not just the weeks of occupancy.
£200 a week!, how is that possible to afford?.
My best mates kid is 16 and wants to study international development or similar and she’s absolutely bricking it at the costs (Scotland btw), she’s a single mum due to husband dying from cancer 6 years past and thanks to joint/arthritis issues being inflamed by covid can’t work and relies on benefits and is just about holding it together as is, are halls of residence for the first year covered by the uni or is that an extra cost?, christ knows how she’s going to pay for the 2nd/3rd years if she has to pay for housing etc.
The state of education is ****ed in this country, no money no play in action
@somafunk SAAS will probably give full "grant"/loan payment in your friends case (will at least cover accommodation) and unis will have bursaries that can be applied for. Also Lions club and round table etc will give money for books and other necessities. There are funds out there that will help little amounts but they will make the difference.
As I understand it, tuition fees in Scotland are very low (for Scottish people) compared to England.
£200 a week is the going rate in Edinburgh for a room student land, it's not going to get cheaper in 2nd year unfortunately
Dropped the eldest off at Herriot Watt last weekend for fresher's week and his accommodation looked to be pretty good.
Think the onsite halls are about 650 a month for the ones he's in. See how he feels about it after a month or 2
Eldest was in Heriot Watt cheaper halls through pandemic. They were clean & maintained well, welcomed by staff who showed him his room, good lounge and separate common room. Through lock downs the management ordered in treats like hot chocolate and a few biscuits, a pizza etc to be delivered to every room.
But this week's offering from Edinburgh Uni is poor...
Heriot Watt dozered the shit blocks to make way for the Robotarium.
According to the Bank of England, my £38 p/w hall accommodation in 1996 should cost £73.90 today. I've just checked and it actually costs £139.
That old favourite - official inflation, what we have to actually pay for things and the widening gulf between them*.
* does not apply to earnings
Sorry but I am also on the side of this all sounds like par the the uni halls course. Part of the experience? Character building? Not sure, but definitely a rip off and scandalous conditions but it always has been anywhere I have seen.
I thought it would end once I was out of halls but the private accommodation was way worse. I had a 0.5m x 0.5m hole in the bathroom floor through to the kitchen in my first place which was promised to be fixed before moving in and of course never was. When you are a student with little money and everywhere else is taken, you get stuck with all kinds of sh1t.
A combination of very high demand, no incentive to actually make the conditions safe let alone great, and no better options doesn't exactly drive up quality and reduce costs 🙁
In fairness to the university by the end of the first semester the other people I was stuck with had had 2 or 3 fire extinguisher fights, attracted rodents with their kitchen hygiene and thought it was funny to p1ss on each others doors when then came in after a night out... every night, so the extra investment would have been wasted with how the majority of kids away from home for the first time seem to treat places.
edit: what @ThePinkstr said
Also OP, "secure bike locations" are optimistic in any city let alone uni. If in halls, on a old rug or in a bike bag under the bed assuming a bike of value rather than a cheapy commuter.
Dropped Miss OTS at St Andrews over the weekend. Her room is night and day compared to Master OTS who went to Glasgow (Murano). Really welcoming at St Andrews, loads of info, free burgers and bar over the weekend. Nice decor and storage - looks really nice.
Only issue, and this is about as 1st world problem as it gets, was having to queue for 2 hours to buy her gown. If we'd been more organised, we could have ordered it for collection. I did get some great photos for one of my lean/queue value stream mapping courses though 🙂
having to queue for 2 hours to buy her gown
Isn't that not really required for another 3 years though??
You would hope somewhere like St. Andrews could be better than average!
^ @doris5000 posh unis do things different and like to dress up
Isn’t that not really required for another 3 years though??
Try 4 or realistically 5 years in reality.
Or just Sunday morning
^ @doris5000 posh unis do things different and like to dress up
Indeed - it's all a bit too Harry Potter TBH
Or just Sunday morning
Is that just so that they can easily find anyone who wanders off?
@onehundredthidiot Cheers for the reply, hopefully the school will keep him informed as to what help is available. As an aside I see my mate is on the BBC Scotland website/scottish news today talking about John, his cancer and the difficulties of getting treatment.
posh unis do things different and like to dress up
It’s some horrific posturing/singaling to the great unwashed in St Andrews.
Quite distasteful IMHO dressed up as tradition.They should abolish gowns from a greening perspective if nothing else.
One of my colleagues son's is in that photo.....but yes, it is ridiculous.
Go with The OU and you won’t have these problems (or just have yourself to blame! :0P )
Are the gowns not optional? Or are they optional in the sense you will be looked down upon if you don't get on board?
They are optional, but my daughter feared she would stand out if she didn't have one.
We planned to buy a second hand one, but they sold out in the time we were in the queue.
Mate of mine is a landlord to students*. The houses are clean when the students move in, they are meant to be clean when they move out. Last years highlight was when one lad demanded his deposit back after skipping off early leaving many bin bags full of bottles in his room and the cellar. Lots of them. Bottles of urine.
So many tales of disgusting hygiene.
*For the simple reason that the parents are signed up as guarantors, which comes in handy when the little scamp skips off and leaves his bottle collection behind.
On the 3rd January 1800 John Honey, a student of the University, rescued members of the crew of the Janet of Macduff which had run aground off the East Sands of St Andrews.
In the absence of a lifeboat, he had fellow students tie a rope to his torso and swam out to the troubled vessel 5 times, bringing a man with him each time he returned. On his final trip, the ship’s mast broke and fell heavily upon his chest. Despite this, he made it the beach where he collapsed in exhaustion. Honey died at the age of 32 in Perthshire, whilst serving as a Church of Scotland minister: his death was attributed to unresolved health issues following the accident on board Janet.
Is that really "quite distasteful"?
So they were taking part because of peer & organisational pressure.
Or because it was a fun communal thing to do, we used to troop off to listen to a hymn and a madrigal being sung from the top of a tower at dawn on May day, I doubt many knew why or indeed what a madrigal was, but it was good fun
@somafunk - no yr1 accommodation is *usually* organised by the uni but not included in the fees. It will be difficult with money - to be honest that’s one of the useful learning points of uni, which many upper middle class kids don’t get now. There is some support available for exactly the sort of scenario your friends son is likely to be in - both to get the place and to fund it.
Heriot Watt dozered the shit blocks to make way for the Robotarium.
they actually weren’t shit - they were basic but more affordable! By the sounds of things even 30 yrs on they would have been in a better state than MOABs latest experience. But my recollection is the style of construction may have contained what everyone now knows is RAAC… I was always surprised they demolished those until RAAC became big news.
@moab - I do look in on the StAndrews stuff and think it’s all very weird BUT a lot of what they do is the precise opposite of your Edinburgh complaint - they don’t just chuck a bunch of students in a building and assume it will all work out fine, they have structure, process and pomp. I don’t want to worry you - but I’ve heard some fairly critical stories about post covid teaching standards at Edinburgh. At least HW knows it’s in the real estate game and gets that bit right!
So they were taking part because of peer & organisational pressure.
'Pier Pressure' was right there for the taking.
‘Pier Pressure’ was right there for the taking.
Bad day yesterday. Well done.
Is that really “quite distasteful”?
I was referring to the wearing of gowns, not the Pier Walk, although I understand how what I wrote could be interpreted as that. Apologies.
One of my kids has just gone to Salford. Nice accomodation on campus and well run so far.
Indeed – it’s all a bit too Harry Potter TBH
We always compared Jnrs time at Cambridge to Hogwarts, till his graduation when it became more like Unseen University.
None of his mates felt that wearing gowns was a sign of superiority. It makes them a tourist attraction if anything.
joshvegas Free Member
Heriot Watt dozered the shit blocks to make way for the Robotarium.
If you're referring to Caddon, Ettrick and Yarrow then it's the GRID that's on their site. The Robotarium (a building surely named by fans of Futurama) is out by the research park.
I spend my 1st year at Heriot-Watt in Midlothian. It, Linlithgow and Pentland got demolished a few years before Caddon, Ettrick and Yarrow. I found them a bit basic and cramped in the '90s but clean, warm and reasonably well maintained. However apparently by the time they were taken down apparently only their ground floors were useable, and it sounds in retrospect that they may well have had RAAC issues.
Nothing's been built on the site of the Linlithgow, Midlothian and Pentland halls, it's all been left as a fairly nice green.
I was referring to the wearing of gowns, not the Pier Walk, although I understand how what I wrote could be interpreted as that. Apologies.
I'm not sure that it is distasteful. Weird certainly, but the Uni has been there longer than almost anyone else in the area can trace their lineage to the area, so if it has odd traditions then so be it. I'm sure some go there for the oddness, some despite it. What I am sure is that only a tiny fraction of population of St Andrews would live there if it were not for the university. Their property values would certainly be lower if they were just another slightly difficult to get to village on the Fife coast, with a good golf course.
daviek
Full MemberDropped the eldest off at Herriot Watt last weekend for fresher’s week and his accommodation looked to be pretty good.
HW's a bit of a special case what with being outside the city, so partly they really have no choice but to offer good halls, but also they have the space for them with the size of the campus. Some planning constraints obviously but not too bad. And because they own it all they're incentivised to look after them for the long term. All usually works out pretty well for everyone.
Only downside is they've lost the cheaper options- like others mentioned the oldest halls got demolished and now they don't offer the next-oldest and cheapest to undergrads. And all the new stuff is built for higher end, higher rent for obvious reasons. But it's still a decent offering overall. (I don't like the new halls, Ferguson Spark and Macleod, they're too civilised and "apartmenty" and not "hallsy" enough but they are really nice buildings. Robert Bryson party hall ftw)
Durham does something similar. Most colleges have UG gowns for formal dinners and you get woken up by senior students by the fire alarm, walk all the way through town wearing your gown (much further from a hill college) with older students banging pots and pans, to the Cathedral where they read some Latin and a person from each colleague has to sign the Matriculation book. Everyone is hungover and has no idea what is going on.
Weird, we just had an annual boat race against the 'other' university.
... boat race as in standing in a line downing pints.
Did you get a choice of hall? From recollection I got offered:
Adult daycare style including all meals and cleaning.
Premium including en-suite bathroom, cleaning / big shared area and kitchen.
Mid with shared toilet, no cleaning.
Skid row style for the Young Ones experience.
Totally average Uni. Looking up these days it looks similar with the addition of super premium hotel style for overseas students paying £££.
Everyone outside of adult daycare seemed to have a good time. All options under £330 a month where a beer cost a £1.
Not sure what to think of it these days. Seems like a giant rental / real estate play.
And so the fun continues.
First proper lecture cancelled without notice.
First meeting with a tutor/advisor - turned up 20 mins late and gave them 10 mins.
No explanation why the 'mandatory' lecture was cancelled or the first lecture. Didn't know that there was a clash of optional modules.
And they are in the 60% of unis who will make profit this year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxdd7qglp6o
Their property values would certainly be lower if they were just another slightly difficult to get to village on the Fife coast, with a good golf course.
Because, of course, what every resident of a small country town dreams of is property prices rocketing so their kids can no longer afford a home and have to move away.....
My son really struggled with his first day yesterday. Had difficulty finding his way around the campus, found one lecture but no one was there, found another but it was wrong year group. Went to find someone to help him/talk to but their office was closed (sent them email). Gave up and came home at lunchtime. I tried to help but it’s over 30 years since I was at uni and it’s very different/digital now. Looks like he has down loaded some wrong timetable info, some lectures haven’t actually started yet etc. He is a bit of a lost sheep right now. He is meeting his cousin, who is doing a Masters at the uni, tomorrow for some help/pointers. My son took a year out last year so doesn’t know any other first years yet (and hasn’t found any to meet) and none of his mates went to uni last year so no one else he can ask for pointers and the orientation day he did last week was geared more toward how to study etc rather that practicalities. I am hoping it gets better for him.
any advice how I can help him settle in?
Dropped my daughter off at Exeter on Sunday for first time. Her on campus studio was very clean and lots of help on hand from both private company running the accommodation and from student body. Couldn’t have gone smoother which is good as she’s autistic and we are all obviously worried as to how she will cope. Let’s hope the lecturing is as well organised as drop off weekend.
anecdotally her mate has just gone into halls in Edinburgh and parents had to go straight out to ikea an buy a new mattress as the one in her room was wet and mouldy.
Their property values would certainly be lower if they were just another slightly difficult to get to village on the Fife coast, with a good golf course.
@poly Lack of a university doesn't seem to to have adversely affected property prices in the @rse end of nowhere that is the East Neuk of Fife.
I missed out on the whole halls thing at uni, they forgot to send the papers with my registration pack and by the time i called they were full. Same as most of my course (useless coordinators!).
On the plus side, the halls i would have been offered were quite literally falling down, the whole complex (16 or 18 blocks of 32 rooms each) had been condemned a couple of years before i arrived, and everyone was told that they didn't need to worry about the place as they would be torn down the following summer. Damp, broken windows, some of the buildings had (literally) no front doors, gaps in the walls so you could see into the next room, and so on.
One of them fell down during the xmas break. And was demolished by easter. (Unoccupied at the time of partial collapse, and during demolition)
The rest of the blocks everyone went to town on at the end of term, totally trashed the place.
Then there was a new bunch of first years moved in the following year...
A mate went to Uni in edinburgh, long time ago now, he's in his 50s. But he walked into his uni arranged digs, turned round and walked out. Ended up in a shared house (which was a bit rough round the edges, but no fungus in the kitchen.
any advice how I can help him settle in?
@andy4d alert course tutors/student support now, same for @winston, there should be student advisors to make sure student needs are met, there certainly are where I work, and we have personal tutorial groups who meet with us, academic staff, to provide that connection, especially for those students who have difficulties adjusting.