University Hall, Cardiff (Halls Of Residence At Cardiff University in general)

Name: mattsday

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Product:	Halls Of Residence At Cardiff University in general
Date:	05/10/02 (4672 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tight Community, Always something happening!, Breeze blocks allow peace and quiet

Disadvantages: Far away, Initially disapointing

University Hall.

The day I recieved my form telling me which halls I had been selected was a very dark one indeed. University hall was my 7th choice accomodation and I admit to feeling rather depressed about it. This feeling of depression was worsened when I discovered that I was in Nevern, notorious for breeze-block walls and prison-like corridors. The peek of this was one of the ever so unhelpful student wardens showed me to my room. My dad, cheerfully asked, "Did you like staying here last year?" to which he replied "No, I hated it." It was bad enough not having an internet connection point, living two miles away from anything and having spray-painted breeze blocks for walls, but to have a sadistic warden and painful looks from my father were almost too much to bear.

Nevermind, I thought. I could apply for a transfer to Senghennydd or Talybont soon... I just had to grin and bear it. Two days later, I wouldn't leave for anything.

Set in Penylan, a pretty middle class area of Cardiff, University Hall is happily situated on top of a fairly large hill, around fifteen minutes walk from a smallish Tesco Metro and an Iceland. The walk to the Union takes between twenty minutes and half an hour, or you can risk trying to pack into the usually overcrowded minibus; not something I reccomend (unless you're lazy). Due to the distence from anything, the university hall facilities become your main focal point - most of which are run by the excellent hall comitte. The bar, you will find, is probably the best thing Uni hall has to offer, with some excellent specials (such as £1.35 a pint of Carling before 9pm Monday - Friday). The snooker table, gym, squash courts and tennis court are all free to use as well, so long as you have a hall card.

Of course, little of this persuaded me to stay at Uni Hall. The deciding factor was the fact that everyone there is genuine and there's always soemthing going on. For example
, you can wake up and find a post-it note on your front door telling you that a parties on that night and you're invited. The fact that you don't know who it is or even where it is doesn't matter; you know you'll find it. The breeze block walls are great too, if your roommates have a party and you're catching a death of flu, their boystrous music will never make it through the walls, let alone the fire doors. It also helps party, because no one feels guilty that they're keeping others up -- because either no one's asleep or they can't hear it!

Every room is larger than I had expected, with a nice sink in the corner (some of the more testosterone charged claim this is a half-en suite facility, I will leave that to your imagination though). There is plenty of storage space (two cupboards, loads of draws etc) and a large desk for when you need to do work (no kidding, the Cardiff work load is high, University is no walk-through). The cleaners are all very friendly, and unlike other halls, you will probably find your kitchen cleaned once a day. We were amazingly lucky and the cleaners did the odd bit of washing up for us too. Bonus!

If you don't drive, or can't afford to take a car, bring your bike. It will transform the 30 minute walk to your lectures into a five minute peddle. Getting back up the hill is a bit of a struggle, but I've no doubt it'll help burn off the binge you had last night.

In my experience so far, mixed floors are less efficient than single-sex floors. Being as I live on the ground floor, it is males only. However, the floor above us are our bretheren and we often socialise together. Where we have acceptable limits (such as toilet seats, washing up etc), inter-gender disputes that date back to the dawn of time mean that males and females are likely to bicker at certain aspects (I can't imagine the girls above would have approved of our removing all tables and putting a dar
t board up in our common area for example).

If I had to choose again, Uni Hall would definitely be in my top three choices, once you get over the distence and just accept it, it's better situated than any other halls (i.e. no train lines, public foot paths or nightclubs near by). I am yet to meet someone at uni hall that had it down as their first choice. I am also yet to meet someone at uni hall that would move anywhere else.

Summary: