Single sex or mixed university accommodation?

[Ineedcoffeenow]

DD has a choice between single or mixed sex accommodation when she starts university in September. She’s very unsure about what she wants. I was wondering what other people’s children have done? What have their experiences been of either option?

Lots of unis offer several options such as single sex, or alcohol free or quieter living ….just to try to accommodate different preferences.

What’s interesting though, is how many opt to live in single sex households when they rent privately in their second year onwards. It’s very common and by no means is a sign that the household don’t mix with the opposite sex!

Neither of mine had a choice.
DS was in an all male flat, but mixed sex hall. This was during COVID so little opportunity for socialising. He got on fine with flat mates, most of whom he continued to rent with for his remaining 3 years. Despite restrictions he made lots of female friends too.
DD was in 2 mixed flats. In her experience, the girls were as filthy as the boys - no one did any cleaning and generally left the kitchen in a revolting state.
It's pot luck as to who you're sharing with unfortunately.

Oh look at this, a misogynistic gross generalization

"the kinds of women who might be more likely to make trouble"

You absolute horror. Go back to 1950's America immediately.

I was placed in a girls section in halls. Everyone else was an Muslim international student so it wasn't the student experience I was expecting. I made drinking friends elsewhere through and had a great gang of women who shared food back in halls. We were an education for each other.

Doubt it as that would be completely bizarre and illegal.

Even if it’s single sex, they are welcome to have members of the opposite sex to stay so makes it pointless in a way

I was merely clarifying that I am not so sexist to assume that the vomit and riotous behaviour at 3am that my friends in mixed-sex halls encountered was entirely due to men, but that women have capacity to exhibit such behaviours too. Are you shocked that I classify leaving pools of vomit for someone else to clear up, and yelling at top volume at 3am as "trouble" or are you angry that I consider the reason why we didn't have these things in the single-sex building as possibly due to the fact it is single sex without entirely blaming men for it. Are all women entirely incapable of antisocial behaviour in your view?

There were a couple of single sex corridors at my uni. Most of the residents in them were either international students or they had requested single sex for religious or cultural reasons (one girl was from a strict family from Africa and was a very strict Christian, another was from a strict Catholic family and the other girls were Muslim). One of the girls who lived on the same sex corridor was on my course so I got to know some of the girls on the corridor. The male corridor was the same, international students or requested for religious or cultural reasons.

The rest of the campus was mixed.

If you get choice go for mixed.

One dd had a fab time in mixed and met lifelong friends.

Other dd wanted mixed and put that in a request but ended up with all female. Had a great year and got on well with everyone, especially 2 of the girls, but the others were quiet and didn’t go out which limited her social opportunities and because of this didn’t get to know as many people, whereas other flats socialised together.

Its all in the word "type"
If you classify people as "types" then there's something very limited going on in your brain.

I didn't use the word "type" at all.

So just to clarify, am I allowed to acknowledge that some women get vomitously drunk and shouty and antisocial and some don't? Is it specifically that I can't say that someone is the kind of person (or not the kind of person) who would do this? Or is the only way to think about people to assume that ANY OF US could do this sort of thing at any time, with no way of predicting? It was 7 minutes past midnight and I was honestly trying NOT to be sexist because I didn't want to imply that only males are antisocial.

Single sex halls are a thing for Muslim women and those from more restricted backgrounds who don’t drink. So you might find there’s not a mix of women in them.

The girls who have been to single sex schools often want mixed halls but their background is instrumental in this choice . My DD1 had a girls flat (6) in a mixed hall. DD2 had a mixed flat.

It’s a problem when dc don’t clear up and that can be boys or girls it appears. Catered halls avoid dirty kitchens! The halls only have mini kitchens for snacks. Having a dining hall does help with finding friends if your flatmates are not to your liking.

Whatever. The words Type / sort / kind - all hold the same meaning, restricted and narrow.

Someone could get violently sick from drinking once in their life. Does that make them the "kind" of person to do it? No one is a "kind" of person. Its a ludicrous term.

I don't need to hear any more from you, its all just judgement of other women basically.

My dd had said she’d prefer mixed sex but was pooled to one of the two Cambridge women’s colleges. This actually worked out very well socially as her course was heavily male dominated and all her pals from that were male - she ended up with a much more balanced friendship group as a result of being in single sex accommodation.
This, however, is probably atypical - it wasn’t particularly skewed towards girls from socially conservative backgrounds.

I read an article by a Cambridge student who was in the first intake after covid, and the college had decided to room them by subject to reduce mixing. She was the only girl doing her subject, and had been at a girls' school, so was rather apprehensive, but it all worked out fine!

My DD chose single sex (flatshare) for her gap year (a full time undergraduate course), mixed (catered hall of residence) for her first year of university and single sex (house share) for second year. She has brothers and always went to mixed schools so definitely had no illusions about male domestic contributions.