University life for our soon to be Year 2 undergrads (2019 intake): social bubbles (bursting?), the new normal and hopefully no second wave

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@Piggywaspushed my DS bought himself a mini fridge for his room kept it under his desk because of the lack of room at uni. he had it for years afterwards to keep his booze in.

www.amazon.co.uk/Mini-Desktop-Fridges-Freezers-Home/b?node=10706381&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

I thought about hat but they aren't really for food. There is literally no room even for that in his bedroom!

Well clearly they will have to share shelves four ways @Piggywaspushed? How come your DS is losing out when he wasn't even the last one to sign up to the house. That doesn't seem right?

PS Surely if there's four of them and only three shelves, the students have to share and don't have one each?

Yes, they will have to share. I think they are used tot eh shelf each from last year!

DS needs assertiveness training! He sorted the house for all of them! But he does let people walk over him a bit.

You'd like to hope that when they're essentially sharing with friends, there'd be less fridge raiding going on. I do remember though that milk is one of the things that always used to mysteriously vanish! Maybe not so much these days with people having many more milk options.

Hope your DS learns to be more assertive @Piggywaspushed. Mine is pretty much the same. I don't think I was at that age (but I am now!).

@Piggywaspushed my ds ended up with the downstairs bedroom he didn't want. Apparently names were drawn out of a hat at one lads house, he filmed himself pulling his own name out first, then he 2 friends names, ds last. I knew ds end up with the downstairs bedroom next to the kitchen. The other 2 rooms are en suite and more money, 2 people wanted those rooms, so that part was easily sorted. Ds always ends up getting the last choice or being left the least space etc. He needs to be much more assertive too.

On the plus side, it's a big room so plenty of space, patio doors into the garden. Though no other window to open. He shares a bathroom with one other person and it's a fairly new bathroom. Hopefully new furniture arriving today too.

On an entirely different note, do you think I'd be allowed to include a link to a GoFundMe page on here? It's nothing to do with me but I happened upon a post via WIWIKAU about an 18-year-old (if you search for #savealviar you'll find out more about him) who has a very poor prognosis with leukemia (essentially he's fundraising for his last chance treatment option in Singapore). He has a place at Oxford to read biomedical sciences but clearly is currently too poorly to go up this year. They're at nearly £400K in their fundraising, so getting there but clearly every day counts for him.

DD isn't going back until the end of the week as she's making the most of getting a job this summer (struggled in past). She's got the small quirky room at the back, she was the only one who wanted it, so she's happy. Her four flat mates are back and takeaway pizza planned first night

DD has a room that was locked when they viewed the house so she volunteered to have it. It’s the biggest in the house with 2 windows. Good.

It’s above the living room. She couldn’t sleep last night because of the chatting under her. So not so good.

Argh. Name change fail! It’s Chillywhippet who posted in the early threads. It looks like Cankles dropped in from nowhere with soon student room thoughts

[quote icanbewhatiwant]@Piggywaspushed my ds ended up with the downstairs bedroom he didn't want. Apparently names were drawn out of a hat at one lads house, he filmed himself pulling his own name out first, then he 2 friends names, ds last. I knew ds end up with the downstairs bedroom next to the kitchen. The other 2 rooms are en suite and more money, 2 people wanted those rooms, so that part was easily sorted. Ds always ends up getting the last choice or being left the least space etc. He needs to be much more assertive too.

On the plus side, it's a big room so plenty of space, patio doors into the garden. Though no other window to open. He shares a bathroom with one other person and it's a fairly new bathroom. Hopefully new furniture arriving today too. [/quote]
This is exactly what happened to DD, and why she has ended up in the smallest bedroom. The girl who drew the names out of the hat coincidentally picked out the best bedroom for herself

Although the downsides for the girl with the nice bedroom is that she is sharing her bathroom with the two boys, and her room is boiling hot when the sun shines and will feel like a fridge in winter, so it will even out in the end.

@Ginfordinner methinks the draws were rigged for your DD and @icanbewhatiwant's son. I can't believe the chutspah of some youngsters!

Yes, there are bound to be advantages and disadvantages with most rooms, I would have thought, as @Chillywhippet's DD has discovered.

I recall my own student room was definitely the smallest in my house share but the warmest in winter (which was definitely a bonus!). I don't think it ever crossed my mind to be aggrieved about its size (and I believe we all paid the same rent) compared with the others. Clearly I was much more laid back then!

I think so too, but the girl in question is actually quite a nice girl and DD is pretty friendly with her. DD is also not assertive enough and just wants to keep the peace. TBH the room she did get was bigger, but in the eaves with dormer windows and a sloping ceiling, and she hated it. One of the boys was happy to swap with her. I'm not going to lose sleep over it and neither is DD.

DD's cousin said that the smallest room is likely to be the warmest as well.

Ds's room is plenty big enough. He just didn't want to be downstairs with a hatch through the wall into the kitchen. He thinks it might be noisy. Plus no window to open apart from the patio doors. He likes to have a window open at night. A new wardrobe should be arriving today, hopefully that'll go in front of the hatch. I hope it'll be ok and not too noisy.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-meeting-with-others-safely-social-distancing/coronavirus-covid-19-meeting-with-others-safely-social-distancing

Does this mean:

1. Flatmates can have people to stay if they live in a flat of 6 but their friends/parent/girlfriend etc does not go near the others.
2. If another flatmate decides to hold a party, are all the flatmates charged £100 and possibly prosecuted?
3. University social clubs can carry on as before with as many numbers as they want.

The answer could be interpreted as yes to all of those surely with a quick look through the new rules?

I would think it's a total no to 1). unless one of the six flatmates is staying elsewhere 2). not sure about (I would think that if a party was taking place and flatmates not happy about it, they would absent themselves TBQH although where to is anyone's guess!) 3) I suspect social clubs may be able to continue (in the same way as sport clubs, dance classes etc. can).

Number one in your list is absolutely no - no more than 6 people together inside or outside. Doesn’t matter if some are in their own rooms and not participating. If one or more are away or out then visitors can come if the total number is 6 or less.

A UoN student was fined £10k for holding a house party last week. Obviously being made an example of.

As for clubs etc I think they are now having to reconsider / get advice. My DD into performance based activity and they had been planning on putting something on with less than 30 people but now who knows.

Wondering whether there's likely to be an increase in flat/house share romances over the coming months?

No Duvet/pillow when we arrived. No idea why he thought there would be, and he had friends move in a few days ahead of him, so time to check. Quick trip into town and picked one up and grabbed some lunch.

He's picked up his 'lost' belongings already today. Only about half made it, and no plates, so he'll need to pop into Morrisons or Argos.

Apart from having to climb a mountain to get to his house (I don't know if I've ever driven up quite such a steep road), the view from his room is gorgeous

Bath has some very steep hills but equally glorious views! Your DS will get very fit if he's journeying on foot, @MrKlaw! Good that he did manage to get back some of his lost belongings too.

I was very fit when I was at university in Bath! I lived up in the Julian Road area, so at the end of the day I'd hitch a ride from university to the bottom of Bathwick Hill, then walk from there to my house. I'm sure there are buses but I just never took them.

I think in years gone by students cut costs wherever they could @HoldMyLobster! Has your DD gone back to university as yet (sorry if I've missed the relevant update)?

I think in years gone by students cut costs wherever they could @HoldMyLobster! Has your DD gone back to university as yet (sorry if I've missed the relevant update)?

We really did - I had a £2,000 grant to live on, and my rent was £2,000 per year! I had a part time job during term-time, and I paid off my overdraft each year with a summer job.

My daughter's university is not allowing first or second years back until January, in an effort to keep enough rooms for quarantining and isolating. So she's home till January, at least.

A 3rd year friend has invited her to come and live in an apartment in Chicago, but she's hesitant while she waits to see how things play out. The Covid rates were not going the right direction recently, so things need to improve.

Life is OK at home though - her boyfriend is here too, and she has a couple of other friends who couldn't or chose not to go back to college.

So Bath has always been an expensive place to live then @HoldMyLobster? Those were the days when grants were still a thing. We were so lucky although we didn't realise it necessarily at the time!

New thread when you're ready