Bridges Hall (Halls Of Residence At The University Of Reading)

Member Name: mezer3000

Product:	Halls Of Residence At The University Of Reading
Date:	03/02/09 (537 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good room size, quite cheap, good sense of community

Disadvantages: Poor food, dated facilities

So when applying for Halls Of Residence at Reading university, the main thing I was concerned about was how close it was to the university buildings. I spent quite a while with the university hall booklet, slowly narrowing down my selection.

I applied for Whiteknights, Wessex, and Bridges, and ended up in Bridges. At first I thought this was the worst thing that could have happened; although it was close to the university building, on looking at the website for Bridges I was thoroughly disappointed by the look of the facilities.

But I didn't have much choice. So in October 2007 I moved in.

On the day I arrived, I was given keys for external doors, my internal corridoor, my room and my post box.
The first thing I went and did was looked at my room. I had asked to have a room with a sink. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the room.

In my room there was:
a bed
a small table
a desk
a desk lamp
a network cable
a 4 plug extension lead
a fitted wardrobe
a sink, with a cupboard underneath it
3 shelves above the desk

I had to pay extra to have a sink in my room, but I figured this was worth it, so that I could get ready for bed in privacy etc

The majority of Bridges is catered food. The food was always of good quality, but there was hardly ever anything I would eat. I regret picking catered halls as I was paying to be catered, but often had to buy food and cook for myself anyway! Worked out very expensive!!!

Bridges has single sex corridors. We were joined to a boys corridor and another girls corridor in an L shape. Each of the 3 corridors had their own bathroom, but we all shared a kitchen. 39 of us shared the kitchen, and 13 to each bathroom. In our bathroom we had one shower, two baths and 3 toilets. It turned out that having 1 shower between 13 girls wasn't a problem at all, I only ever had to wait for the shower once or twice. The kitchen was a bit of a problem, with 39 of us sharing a Baby belling oven. This made cooking at the weekends very difficult as we all had to share 2 hob rings and an oven.
However this got changed to a full size cooker after many of us complained!

We had a brilliant sense of community on our 3 corridors; often going out together, sharing meals and going down to dinner together. It really was a brilliant laugh, and I definitely would pick this hall again if I had to!

Summary: Best year of my life!