They settle in and we miss them. Uni Starters 2023 - Thread 2

[spamm]

I wanted to get a news thread ready for everyone as you wake up in the Uk.

We are settling into a routine of talking to DS on FaceTime on Sunday mornings after our breakfast, which is early pm his time. It is so nice to see his smile and catch up on how he is doing. I know at some point he will have a bad day, but so far he seems to be doing so well, I am ridiculously proud.

Hope you all have a good week!

AND I have just read back and my writing is very very lazy. I meant ds is in London and I have no idea where school came from!

This

lhalondon.com/contact/

@stilldumdedumming I have heard of LHA and I think I looked in to them before. But, they have some variable reviews. I'm quite cynical and tend to trust the bad ones more than the good ones! https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/lhalondon.com

@stilldumdedumming I looked elsewhere as well as Trust Pilot. I seem to remember a review about the people who run the accommodation entering a girl's room at night when she was in bed, unannounced.

That's really frightening!

Yes. It is really hard. The staff are volunteers in return for accommodation it looks like - although I presume there are paid staff too but it's always going to be a gamble.

I like halls because you feel like there's a larger more organised organisation behind it with maintenance and bills included etc.

Lots of scams too. There's an organisation called university living charging to do your application- but they don't have their own stock (like sometimes unite, amber etc have halls in the same block presumably owned by someone else but portions managed by different organisations). University living charge £100 to make the application that you can make yourself direct - there are others like that because some halls have notices on their websites about it .

I have to trust that ds will sort himself out and it will be last minute as he is time blind and he is the most organised of his group!

@LittleRedRidingSnood just read Trustpilot link. Thank you! Very sketchy. And sounds like it could be really stressful. I'll pass to ds.

@stilldumdedumming Yes, the scams scare me. Ds was going to view a flat with friends recently and they offered them it and sent the tenancy doc all very quickly. When I looked in to it, there was no landlord address or mobile on the tenancy agreement, just the name. When I looked that up, he turned out to be a convicted paedophile. I have told the group to try and physically go to the offices of rental organisations to confirm the property etc and will help with due diligence, but it's worrying.

And that could have meant them parting with thousands in deposit and rent in advance!

@stilldumdedumming Exactly! It’s quite sobering.

@LittleRedRidingSnood I spoke to ds today. He's been to see Uni Housing Services this week. They said to look from July onwards for September start. He's been told he can stay in halls until October if he's happy to move around rooms.

Hope all is well with DC back from first year of uni. Did the final move from student accommodation today. Thought we had brought most of it back home last month. Today it took over two hours to pack up and clean room. The amount of stuff DD has accumulated! Just managed to get it in the car. It had to fit, I was not going to do the four hour round trip again this week! The weather was wonderful today so went to have a late lunch at harbourside. Music and food - I'm beginning to enjoy Bristol. Now we just have to finish sorting house share and pay up from July even though she doest start back until late September. Student finance sorted - thanks for the reminder. DD working this summer with a number of holidays and festivals booked. Also doing a bit of research and writing articles in the hope of getting something published in uni mag. I was worried that there would be an enthusiasm slump during the long holidays. Have a wonderful summer break . Looking forward to year 2 😀

DS has been home for two months already and we're actually now gearing up for the return 😲Term doesn't start until late September but he has a summer internship at the uni which looks like it will be really interesting and great for his CV. His new accommodation doesn't start until next academic year so we're having to find some extra accommodation this summer. I haven't even properly unpacked and stored everything from his return and now we have to get at least some of it back out and packed up again.

Gosh which uni is that? Dc isn’t finished until Friday

He's at Bangor @cloudtree. No exams except a couple of online assessments so he left when classes ended.

It was end of Y1 for DD on Friday. DH picked her up and the car was loaded up in five minutes DD having brought everything down from her room to the Porter’s lodge over the course of the previous 40 minutes. She is used to vacating her room every term but has previously left some items in lockable storage in her room over Christmas and Easter so this time it was everything but she travels fairly light and wasn’t in any danger of not fitting it in the small hatchback.

No deep clean required as the kitchen and showers are shared and cleaned by the college and she does a light vacuum of her room which then gets a deep clean before the wedding and conference guests check in. She is back in the exact same room in October.

Exam and marked essay results come out on 4th July. To earn a bit of money she is learning some scripts for a tour job she is doing over summer. A couple of her school friends are staying in their uni towns for jobs or partners so she has plans to pay a few visits over the summer to catch up with them as well as meet up with some of her lovely Uni friends.

I might send ds2 there for purely selfish reasons. I’m not ready to be an empty nester yet!

8 week terms at DD’s uni, she is home more than she is away!

DS has been home nearly a month now. Tbh we've seen him at least every few weeks or so due to either a gig with his band here or being not well and being in hospital here. Luckily the former has happened more often than the latter and not since beginning of January. His uni is only about an hour away on the train although longer by car.

DD will be heading off to uni this Autumn - she is going to one about 4 hours away in the other direction so won't see her as much!

Dd is making the most of the last days of paid residence in her hall and has popped back to see a few friends. We're having to call in on the way to our holiday cottage in Wales next week to pick up her last few belongings - so we'll have a lovely full-length mirror and a lot of extra bedding to add to our luggage...

Ds has just finished his last piece of work to be submitted and officially finishes on Friday. He'll be home on Saturday on the train and still isn't quite sure what stuff he'll store or return with. I imagine it will all happen quickly at the last minute. But, he does have things like a bulky guitar case.

It looks like him and his friends are about to secure accommodation for next year and are really happy with the flat they've found in London. I've just been reading the tenancy agreement and in signing it, the tenants agree to use Better Billing, but it gets some awful reviews on TrustPilot. Has anyone come across them before?

I haven't @LittleRedRidingSnood - well done to ds on the flat front though!

DS has been home just over a month but actually finished mid-April! Has picked up a summer job which is pretty much full-time so keeping him busy and hopefully will help finances for next year

Got DD home. DD fell lugging her stuff around and promptly knocked herself out, came around with blurred vision and massive headache, so trip to casualty, hours wait, told to go home and observe throughout the night and not to leave her alone for next 24hrs. Gone back for scan, all good but she is still sleepy/ headache. It's my birthday! I was hoping for a lovely dinner out but honestly just glad she's home and ok! On leaving her halls picked up a leaflet about summer storage - think I might do that next year. Now just want a quiet summer holiday.

Happy Birthday @Lowther & hoping your DD makes a very speedy recovery!