| Product: |
Accommodation in general |
| Date: |
24/04/01 (179 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: 2 years in halls
Disadvantages: some halls way better than others - be careful
Okay, so it’s been 10 years since I left the uni so things might have changed and there may be a few more halls to choose from but here’s my tuppence anyway, however, you should read more from a more recent review just to check.
Incase you don’t know Aberdeen Uni practically guarantees all students 2 years in halls. In general first year students will go for fully catered halls for the year at the end of which they’ll have made a bunch of good friends and go into one of the self catering ‘flats’ in their second year. As I say most people do it this way and I think it works pretty well. In your first year in ‘catered’ halls you will meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends. Of the people I know who chose 2 years in ‘catered’ halls they regretted their second year a bit saying ‘its never as good the second time around’. But from my experience first year is a blast !!
Now, Aberdeen has 3 main halls ‘Hillhead’, ‘Dunbar’ and ‘Crombie-Johnston’. The actual rooms in each hall are all pretty much the same, they have a narrow single bed (no doubt someone gained a Phd finding the optimal width for a goodnight sleep without allowing a second person to share it with you), a desk and a washhand basin. Toilets and showers are shared between around 6 or 7 rooms. Beware ! some rooms have ‘yale’ type locks which lock behind you and a common trick is to nick someone’s key and towel when they are in the shower meaning they have to go all the way to reception to get a porter to let them back in !. Each hall also has that smell that every university hall has – there must be a company somewhere that packages it and sells it to them all. Anyway, the hall you choose is very important so here is the lowdown on each :
Hillhead – This is a HUGE hall comprising of a number of blocks containing both ‘catered’ and
‘self catering’ units. The whole place lacks character and feels impersonal. It reminds me of the H-block (not that I’ve been) or some sort of POW camp, the vast range on nationalities reinforces that feeling. It is also the furthest hall from town and from the campus – if you go here take your bike !!!. For your first year try to avoid this one if at all possible. However, most second years choose to go here since it is the only hall with the ‘self catering’ units. On the plus side it does have a couple of tennis courts. On the negative side it is not in as nice a part of town as the other halls, it is also on the far side of a large park that you need to walk through in the dark evenings and this park is renowned for muggings/rapes/stabbings etc rest assured on the year you go there will be some of these and the Uni will issue the same old warnings.
‘Crombie Johnston’ – Essentially 2 halls merged into one. There are 2 distinct buildings but they share the same dinner hall although they do have their own common rooms. This hall is right on campus you can literally fall out of bed and into lectures. It’s close to the library and only 30 minute walk from town. Quite a nice area (no dark parks to cross). In general this is the most sough after hall – those in the know specify that they want this one. In general the majority of the ‘public school’ sector go here but it is not ‘snobby’ its actually pretty friendly. The gym is just around the corner too. If you can I would definitely recommend this hall.
Finally there is ‘Dunbar’ this hall lies between Crombie-Johnston and Hillhead (but there is no need to cross the park to get to it). It’s about the same size as C-J and from the people I knew there they spoke highly of it. It is about a 10-15 minute walk to the main campus from here.
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