Sharing a room university halls

[Accomodationsharing]

DD favourite uni and course is in London. The rooms close to the university are quite expensive but the twin rooms are more affordable. We actually live commuting distance; but happy for DD to do first year in halls.

Has your child shared a room? How have their experience been? Rooms are all en suite.

Sorry to bring the tone down, but I always wondered how you fart in a shared room - don't mind in front of my husband but I'd be mortified in front of a roommate 😂😂

I also meant to say, I think the commute is too much. I believe a hall experience is usually worthwhile and dc can always go home in y2 if they don’t have friends for sharing. Hopefully that won’t happen.

How can you think the commute is too much when you don’t know what it is?

I did share with my bf. I didn't know they offered shared rooms, with a stranger? If it was someone you knew and liked but you may well get on eachothers nerves a lot!

When someone says they live in commuting distance, that usually doesn’t mean 15 minutes. @Accomodationsharing How far is the commute? I have to say I assumed not 15 mins!

Boundaries are broken quickly, especially when alcohol is in the mix. I wish farting was all I dealt with!

I would have really hated it, but I'm quite introverted!

I shared in my third term of first year, we got enormous rooms and I knew the girl I shared with by then as it was a lovely all women's hall.
I am not sure I'd have coped at the start of first year. By the time we moved round a few had dropped out or moved back home.

I know a few folk who shared and overall seemed to be relatively unscathed, however it's definitely my idea of hell. Sharing a flat was enough! I don't like the idea of it being a random person who you know nothing about.

Up to an hour each way is doable. Many people do that to work daily, or even to school.

I shared a room at uni (mid 90s) and have been best long distance friends ever since with my room mate, We live 7 hours apart so rarely meet up, but we text and call often, and have shared each others life ups and downs.

Most people got on well, if they didn’t they could move or swap: I don’t remember any particular issues, just where they made friends they moved.

DD was allocated a shared room in halls at St Andrews in first year. Not a fantastic experience but it sharpened her elbows and she got through it, while making lifelong friends with other people in the same hall. A few years on it's not a big deal.

I shared a room. It was the worst and I am very sociable and easy going.

she had loads of sex whilst I was ‘asleep’ and when she wasn’t shagging she was eating pot noodles, playing really shit music (Def Leppard all the fucking time) and just being really, really unfriendly. I moved out as soon as I could.

Well, as a room sharer, for the first few days we held it in and went to the toilets. After that, we would let rip and spend the time laughing about it. Hers were all high pitched squeakers, like that rubber chicken noise. it broke a lot of ice, as well as wind, and helped us get along! But I don’t remember either of us being especially farty. Plus we weren’t on the same course so often had time alone in our room to 💨

I don’t know how people do it. I know it is common in the US. I would have stayed home rather than share

When I went, I went to my reserve place. I don’t think I had given it much thought as a few people I knew were off to uni and they were also sharing.
If you hated it, there were options. Room changes were allowed. I don’t remember anyone being so awful that they didn’t have a friend to swap rooms to share with.

When I look back though, I’m quite horrified that it was just the thing we all accepted as the norm. We didn’t have the same knowledge you can get now with internet to research accommodation.

I shared in my first year. It wasn’t great tbh as roommate had a very vigorous and adventurous sex life and I was often woken up up by random naked men falling on my bed. I tried not to be there as much as possible - slept on friends floors or stayed with my boyfriend. It would have been fine with someone with an ounce of consideration but instead it felt profoundly unsafe. I tried to swap rooms but I was way down the list for another room and funnily enough no one wanted to swap.

God that sounds awful @MrsBobtonTrent

It’s going to be playing Russian Roulette to an extent regardless but some people are naturally going to find sharing really hard, and only you know if your OP is one of those people. If she is particularly sensitive to noise, or needs alone time in her own ‘safe’ space to decompress, or needs things to be set out in her room in a particular way, or needs to sleep more than most, or needs little sleep or a myriad other things then sharing may be particularly difficult for her.

I went to uni in the US & shared there - made one of my best friends forever there & we're still close friends nearly 30 years later despite only seeing each other every few years!

Ohh not. This is not good

I will ask DD and go with what she prefers. She is sensible and money conscious; however we will be happy to pay the extra money as it is only for one year if the experience is going to be better for her.

She told me she didn’t want to see the ones close to the uni as too expensive and they were for the rich. I told her there is no point of seeing the ones further away as she may as well commute from home. She felt sharing could be an option when we saw the rooms

If she ends with a compatible roommate it could be great though.

You are very much at the mercy of who you share with. I had been happy to share and chose to. My roommate had not chosen to and made this consistently very clear. I would hope that universities are better at dealing with this sort of situation now - 30 years ago they couldn't have cared less.

As a more postive side of things I did a masters in another country where we shared 4 to a room. This was fine. We were all on the same page and got along very well. We were a mix of post- and undergrads and shared a bathroom with another room of 4 women. All 8 of us got along and 6 of us are still lightly in touch.

I have just messaged one of my friends from halls in our first year because I thought it was her we shared with. We weren't each other's bridesmaids but we are still in touch - she's moved to my mum's home town so I see her occasionally when I go down.
But now my memory is tricking me because maybe it wasn't her, but this was 40 years ago!

@MrsBobtonTrent The language students who went to study - rather than be an assistante - shared in halls 4 to a room with bunk beds. I didn't envy them even though I enjoyed my few months of sharing.

@drspouse I have often wondered about the difference. Maybe people behave better is a slightly larger group - one person behaving poorly would have to face disapproval of 3 instead of 1. So you have to be more considerate. Alternatively difference in university culture. Abroad was a place where people went to uni with a purpose - it took effort and sacrifice to get there. We still had a fun time though- we all drank, held parties, had partners. But coexisted and considered our roommates. In the UK (particularly 30 years ago) it was v cheap to go to uni and young people drifted into it more as a deferral of adulthood. My roommate had a strict cultural and religious background and uni was her first (and possibly last) taste of freedom. Where I was, all female halls had a particularly bad reputation for hell raising - perhaps strict parents thought they would be a more wholesome environment (quite the opposite!). Perhaps the culture has changed now that uni is so expensive.