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Accommodation in general |
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10/10/00 (268 review reads) |
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Advantages: 2000 1st years partying
Disadvantages: v.institutional so lacks homeliness.
Pollock is the name for the Halls of Residence, and apart from the v.v.v.odd one here or there it is pretty much only 1st year students who live here.
I graduated from Edinburgh a year ago, so my Pollock days were a good 5 years ago and I'm sure it will have changed a great deal (for the better).
Pollock consists of a number of houses (10 or so), grouped together with a big building in the middle which has the dining room, shop (newsagent-type) and bar for all to use. It houses 2000 or so (about half of the 1st year students). It's a healthy walk from Pollock to uni', so if you could seriously reject a place to live based on one place being 2 minutes closer walk (which can be quite a long time when it hits below 0 temperature!), then there's flats nearer to the university.
My only real advice is, if you have an en-suite room you'll be living extremely well, because all the en-suite rooms are in the newly renovated houses. When I was there Masson and Holland house were the only refurbished houses (re-carpeted, good plumbing and heating -new and clean-looking. Needless to say I lived in neither one!). Masson house had a double bed in each room with an en-suite bathroom (so this would be 'top' choice for anyone). Holland had single bed rooms with en-suite shower rooms (no room for complaint!). All of the other houses were pretty horrid. The buildings inside, looked very much like hospitals inside...totally bland, dark, nothing particularly great. The rooms were tiny (but you make do) and the beds...no joke, were about one half of a single bed in size (so the Holland house single beds felt like double beds compared to this!)...and of course, one or 2 showers (maybe a bath too)along the corridor for everyone to share.
Pollock is the easiest way to meet people. When 2000 of you are put together and everyone eats at the dining room together etc... meeting and getting to know people quickly is automatic.
On the other hand, it is not homely at all. It's very much like a bed-sit and that's all your space. Although there's 'some' facilities, like a mini-kitchen etc...you don't really have anywhere to relax like you would at home -in front of the TV and slouch around (apart from the huge communal room which was pretty much an empty room with rickety chairs and an old TV in the room). So...if you really have no qualms about the lifestyle, Pollock is perfectly good.
The alternative type of accommodation (aside from those who live in Edinburgh or already have private accommodation organised) is to live in university flats... there's different blocks of apartments dotted around Edinburgh.
Here there may be 4 or 5 of you living together and you don't get to pick who you live with... on your application you give some details about yourself and then it's pot-luck. (Although 1 or 2 people always manage to change if they are utterly miserable...but it's hard to do and rare for it to happen, so don't count on it!). Also, it's highly unlikely you'll be put in with friends from school etc...
This is how it worked out for me: Pollock was great for the 1st term...you're meeting everyone, you're out all the time, despite the food not being brilliant you don't starve 'cos you get fed etc... so you're literally using your room to sleep and that's it! By the end of the 1st term most people have developed groups of friends etc so that 'necessity' to meet and greet everyone starts to die down (that's not to say there's less amounts of partying). It's the 2nd term in Scotland...the cold begins to kick in quite hard, and generally you start to feel like you'd quite like some more homely comforts around you... you get a bout of flu or something and it would be kind of nice to have a flat-mate around who you know is going to come by and maybe pick something up for
you on the way home... rather than being in a poky room waiting for a good mate to come by etc. I'll be honest... there's always a good mate, but there's also 1st year...which as everyone know is about packing in as much fun, going mental, mad, getting as drunk as possible etc, so as a result the attitude is kind of selfish and no-one really looks out for anyone too much.
Despite some of my personal complaints (all of which are probably irrelevant now as most houses have been refurbished), I actually don't know if I'd have had a better time in a flat than in Pollock or not.
If go to Pollock, take this advice:
1) If it costs more, pay it, but 'please' go to a refurbished house and not an old pokey one (it is definitely worth it (Apply early!).
2) I wouldn't recommend the self-catering houses for 1st year students. There's only one or 2, and for some reason they are the least social of all the houses because the dining room is one of the major meeting places. Also, it tends to be occupied by few non-1st year students in Pollock (mature students etc...).
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