Life in the Precinct (Halls Of Residence At The University Of Sunderland)

Member Name: bluetones_girl

Product:	Halls Of Residence At The University Of Sunderland
Date:	16/08/05 (2165 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lots of places, fun places to live

Disadvantages: expensive, slow to fix things

University of Sunderland has a wide range of student halls, one to suit everybody, and there's enough to almost ensure that any student can stay in halls for the full three years.

I myself stayed in The Precinct for my first 2 years and loved it. Many people complain that the rooms somewhat resemble prison cells. Yes, they do. But you know, a few posters here and there along with some photographs and, call it home!
For the 2 years that I lived there the location was ideal. You literally walked out the gate, past the pub (which handily was right next door) and you were at Uni. You could roll out of bed at 8.55am and still be early!

The reason I chose the precinct originally was that I was terrified of getting stuck in halls with people that I hated. Each block holds 10 people so i figured, the more people, the more chance of being with at least one person who i liked.
I ended up being very lucky and ended up with a great flat full of fun loving individuals much like myself.

The blocks are 3 storeys high. The top floor has 4 bedrooms, a toilet and a shower. The middle floor has 4 bedrooms and a bathroom, and the ground floor has 2 bedrooms and the kitchen/living room area which is quite spacious, but only has 6 stools at the table and 6 comfy chairs in the living room which always causes fights as you either have to squish-up or sit on the floor!!!

The 24 hour security was brilliant and the security guards in my first year were great fun (they changed companies in the middle of my second year and the new ones were a right bunch of miserable sods, but we wont go into that). They realised that 350 odd students were always going to be loudmouth pains the the ass and they had the patience of saints.
I remember one night my beloved, rather worse for wear, flatmate darren was trying to sneak a traffic cone into the halls. His first somewhat badly thought out plan was to just march up to our block carrying it. Unfortunately for him this involved walking straight past the security building so he got caught and told to take it back outside. He then spent the next 30 minutes desperately trying to smuggle it in. The security gaurd took it all rather well and played the game for as long as it took for Darren to get bored and give up.

There is a handy laundry on site which was plenty big enough to make sure you never had to wait long, and none of our post ever went astray.

There's also a red phone box in the middle of the precinct which always causes a great deal of confusion and consternation to all the poor international students (most british ones have mobiles). They always go and try to use it but it never works. The truth is that a few years ago a group of students stole it and dumped it there - i think they could have given my Darren a few tips on sneaking things past security. Its never worked and will never work. Its only there because the Uni cant be bothered to pay anyone to shift it!!!

The precinct is however rather expensive. Its something like £75 a week now, although it was a bit cheaper when I was there. Its all bills included which saved the hassle of keys and having to keep topping them up.

The other problem I have with student halls in general is the ridiculous fine system. Some of the things we had fine notices for were:
- leaving a chair (a broken chair which they never came to fix) on the landing
- leaving a black bag on the kitchen floor next to the bin
- having a candle in the living room
- having a (unused) fondue set on the kitchen counter
well the list is actually endless... ohh my favourite though... the top floor in our block in the 1st year had really bad wiring. If i used my hairdryer it would turn all my lights off and Helens in the room next door. To get them back on you had to trip the switch back on which was out on the landing. The first few times it happened we went to get security. But it happened about 3 times whenever either of us tried to dry our hair so we started doing it ourselves. In the end we just left a chair out there save carrying one out every 5 seconds. Nobody turned up to fix it so this went on for a while. Of course we got a fine notice for the chair on the landing, then after we explained the situation we got another health and safety fine notice for flipping the switch ourselves, lol. Ridiculous.

They were actually very slack about fixing anything. Once our cooker broke - but it broke where it was stuck on. I think it was the grill or one of the hobs, cant remember now. They didnt fix it for 2 days!!!! All the knobs on the cooker were melted and it was too hot for us to go near. It could have started a fire!!! Tut, sigh, University of Sunderland!

But despite that stuff which to be honest is usually not top on the priority list - Who needs to eat? or shower? or have a chair to do work? that all interferes with drinking time - i had a brilliant time in the Precinct and would recommend it to anyone going to study at Sunderland.

Anyway, thats the Precinct... the other halls are:

The Forge: fairly new and quite nice but miles away from everywhere. Flats of 6.

Clanny House: flats ranging from 3 to 6. Again quite a distance from all the campuses and in one of the roughest areas of the city.

Panns Bank: This is the one that won some architectural award. It is very nice but not really worth the extra money. Its also quite chilly as its right next to the river.

Scotia Quay: These are the really nice ones which are more like little flats. They are next to Panns Bank and are where most of the mature students end up. They are the only halls with internet access

The university also has Summerhill and All Saints terrace which are university managed housing. Summerhill is just a slightly nicer version of the precinct!

Summary: great fun but not exactly the lap of luxury