Living at Uni Question

[Verbena37]

Hi

Dd has 2 years until uni but we are regularly discussing options etc and she has said she is adamant she doesn’t want to live in Halls or with anybody else sharing accommodation.
She finds social situations difficult and prefers to have her own space.

Has anybody’s child lived alone at uni for similar reasons and was it in a flat/house you bought etc?

A lot can change in 2 years : she might be a lot better by then.

But if not, perhaps a private rental would be better than Halls. My DD stayed in Halls for the first 2 years, and didn't really like it, because the other people were so messy. The first year, there were 10 students in the flat, and the second year there were 6. Most of them lived like pigs!! Having visited a few times, and seeing the communal areas of the flats, I totally understood her decision to flat share with just one other girl this year. They have rented a lovely 2 bed place, and it will stay tidy!

When she find out what Uni she's been accepted to, maybe a friend or class mate will be going to the same one, and they could share a 2 Bed place?

And btw, renting privately is no more expensive than Halls. Halls were extortionate (£850 pm!)

I'm quite a private person but I lived in halls for my first year.

I spent a lot of time in my room (it was en-suite) but it was nice to know that there were other people around if needs be. I would have hated living on my own because I would have never felt safe if I was walking back from the library or the chippy late at night on my own.

She doesn't have to socialise with her flat mates if she doesn't want to. I saw mine in the kitchen on occasion, but we all mostly kept to ourselves!

I moved in with a couple of people I met in first year for my second and third year, which was lovely. It was a bit more social, but still manageable.

I would suggest to her that she do her first year in halls, and then she can get a place to herself for 2nd and 3rd year if she REALLY hates it.

I honestly think you should try to close down this avenue of worry at least for a while. It's just too soon to be thinking about it and do there is no good way of getting into the details so it becomes a very amorphous dread. And this skews her towards thinking she can't cope.

Once she knows what universities she is applying to/has offers at, she can start asking specific questions that can focus on what she could cope with. (Is this hall okay for me? What is the sticking point? Can I overcome this?)

Asking generally without detail feeds fear. You try to agree between the two of you that you will not think about this issue until X date much further down the line. She should distract herself till then.

unless you live in the back of beyond, surely there's a university nearly that she could go to and still live at home? She's managing to do that for 6th form, so the transition won't be so bad.
At some later point, the option to live away from home would be there, if she felt up to it.
As to all the nonsense about 'going away to live at uni' being so important, how do the 50% of young adults who don't go get on in life?

It's perfectly ok to live at home and commute to university. My son is doing a medical related degree and he along with lots of other students on the course live at home and catch the train into university. What does your daughter want to study OP?

What does she think halls are like? You don't have to share your room with anyone. You don't have to socialise with other people if you don't want to. It is more likely that you will make friends on your course or outside your hall.

Dd's boyfriend is quite like this, he's gone to Uni in our nearest city and moved in from over an hour away, but is sharing a house with his brother.
Dd isn't sure about going at all, (she's still at school), but we're moving in to the city together so she'll have the option of staying at home.

I think this is a bit more than the op indicated, that she finds social situations difficult And prefers her own space. Shes in therapy, is being referred to camhs, and there is a food related issue as well. She cries at the thought of halls.

Hopefully with the right support she can become healthy over the next two years, but right now I don't think the op should push her into going into halls. She should take the pressure right off.

I don’t think I mentioned a food issue? She doesn’t have a food issue...other than being vegan .

I like the idea of telling her to wait with worrying until nearer the time she applies and then check out the options. I know roughly her choices of preferred unis (for zoology and conservation so pretty specific if she wants to get near a good zoo for part time work) and currently Edinburgh and Chester are her faves.

I’ve explained to her exactly what modern halls are like but it’s the thought of passing people in the corridor, people hearing through the bedroom walls, people touching her food etc that she is worrying about.

At home, she won’t nip to the local shop for me I need case she sees someone she knows and they judge her in some way (I have no idea where that comes from). She has a part time job in a restaurant but feels she is better at communicating with strangers than people she knows (I have no idea why she feels like that).

I mentioned to her about studi flats in uni and she perked up when I said that. She says she will try to carry on dancing and join other societies too.

Sorry I though you said there was a gastro issue, which I assumed was food related in some way.

Aha no. No food issues. Was under gastro Paed but signed off now.

DS1 didn't want to live in halls either. We bought a small house and he lived alone (still does) but saw friends away from the house. He did not drop out and has 2 masters degrees. He has a very successful career. He is a loner and probably always will be. We sold the house once he left uni and made a profit. DS2 had a studio flat on campus which was very expensive and it's obviously money you won't see again. DH was most disgruntled! We just did what was best for each child.

I listened to advice on radio 5 today about starting university and mental health.

One quite important bit of advice was to defer the place. So after the results are in, there is a gap year to sort out living arrangements and access more support around going to university. It gives more time to understand what help is available at the university and hopefully for DC to improve.

It was also said that insurance place students find it more difficult to adjust to university. They are not going where they expected to go, feel a failure, all prep has gone out of the window and sometimes insurance students don’t get accommodation at all. They can become isolated with no one looking out for them. Apparently many students who struggle at university do have diagnosed mental health difficulties before they get there. Knowing how to access help, not being alone, having friends/staff looking out for you were said to be positive things students and universities can do.

So, bearing this advice in mind, going to university knowing you have a mental health problem, living alone, not mixing with anyone on a day to day basis who will look out for you, and not accessing help at university are all negatives that should be avoided for a vulnerable young person. So I really would hope your DD’s health improves in the next 2/3 years. Don’t let her do the most worrying things for her health. Maybe university isn’t for her. It’s not obligatory.

That radio 5 stuff is interesting, especially the part about insurance students. I didn’t realise they’re not treated equally.

What about a catered hall? That way she would get her own room, dormitory style, and not have the share kitchen/living space with anyone. You could probably get ensuite as well.

I didn't fancy the 'flat' style of living in my first year as you've no control who you're sharing with. A catered hall suited me fine.

It's a long way away to be worrying about now, it might just build the anxiety. A lot can change in two years.
There are also many options for accommodation. Previous posts have been right about her potentially missing out on such a large part of uni.

The flat I lived in was newly built halls on the more expensive end of the scale. Shared kitchen but other than that we all had our own rooms with beds, desks and lovely en suite bath/shower rooms. It was gorgeous and that was our uni halls on campus. There was 11 rooms to each flat so people would spend a lot of time in their rooms and nobody would ever notice as it wasn't a smaller solid clique iyswim.

At home, she won’t nip to the local shop for me I need case she sees someone she knows and they judge her in some way (I have no idea where that comes from). She has a part time job in a restaurant but feels she is better at communicating with strangers than people she knows (I have no idea why she feels like that).

I could have written this post about my eldest a few years ago. She had terrible social anxiety and was under CAMHS while she was at 6th form, but I couldn't see any way that the girl who wouldn't walk 5 minutes down the road into our small town to buy something she needed would make it to uni.

But, she did. It turned out that the small town was a huge factor, and that thing that you mentioned about being judged by people she'd known vaguely (most people in a small town) since she was at toddler groups was a significant source of the anxiety. Uni turned out to be an opportunity for her to just be herself and feel liberated from the restrictions she felt here. It wasn't at all what she feared it would be like, because everyone was in the same boat as her and everyone was new and finding their feet.

With 2 years to go I'd focus positively on looking round different unis, going to open days and having a close look at halls of residence. There is a massive range, and each one has a different set up (flat sizes etc) and vibe. I'm currently going through this process with my youngest and it's astonishing how one hall can feel horribly, distressingly wrong and another like somewhere you could actually imagine living.

I lived in the flats attached to a main hall. We all had our ensuite bathroom and shared a kitchen. In my second and third years I had made some really good friends and we moved out into a shared house. A friend of mine lived in halls flats for three years and sadly she was out with Spanish students on their year abroad every single year and was a shy person so she never had the opportunity to move out. Your DD could live in halls flats every year if she wanted to.

Absinthe thank you so much . My dd sounds very similar to your’s.
I realise 2 years is a long way off and I’m just posting on here now, to get an idea of similar situations. I haven’t poured anything out to dd and when she remarks on living alone, I just brush it off as something not to worry about yet.

I will look into catered halls.

From a post or two above, I’ve kind of realised though that perhaps living alone will suit her, as long as she joins in with stuff and that if she is happy with that set up, perhaps it will work and trying to change her might make things worse.

Does your DD feel that being and introvert is an issue for her?

I am a massive introvert who can pretend adequate social skills.

Uni at 17 was horrific for me - I felt that I should be pushing myself to make friends, that liking my own company was being a failure, not liking parties was a failure, not having a huge circle of friends was a failure. I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to be "normal" and that really wasn't good for me.

20 years later and still introverted, but I know it is ok to not party, it is ok to like my own company, it is ok to not "hang out" with other people. Uni this time round is a hell of a lot less stressful.

I'm a lomg-windsd way I'm saying that telling your daughter things like "you will be really isolated" like it's a bad thing, or "you will make lots of friends" like not making friends would be a bad thing will pile the pressure on her.

Listen to your daughter and don't tell her what she is feeling is wrong. If she doesn't want to share accommodation at uni she doesn't have to (finances permitting - though she may have to be in a building with other people)

People are in your face the whole time at uni, and it is very hard to escape. Listen to your daughter when she says she needs her own space.

Have you considered autism as the social anxiety issue and the need for time alone is ringing alarm bells for me. Girls do present autism differently than boys so with the right intervention in place she can lead a fulfilling life. Have a look at the girl with the curly hair, it's a social enterprise project for females on the autism spectrum.

I really don't think that halls are the be all and end all of university. University is supposed to be about getting an education. Halls as they are in the UK do not exist in the same way in other countries. Here in France my 2 DDs are in private rental. One shares a kitchen the other has her own flat. All their friends are in the same position and all seem to be enjoying their time.

I'm not saying halls are bad, just that other options are not bad either.

thegirlwiththecurlyhair.co.uk/

A lot of uni accommodation, particularly the new private halls have studio apartments.

You share the laundry and that's about it.

www.unitestudents.com/leeds/joseph-stones-house

As a few people have said - a lot of university cities will have options like this where it is halls but has studios with private bathroom and kitchen. This might be an option when the time comes.

Laying off mentioning it just now might be the thing though if she’s getting upset at the mere mention of halls. And a lot can change in 2 years.