Student Accommodation problem, advice needed

Voyager2002

The most disturbing part of this story is that the student was badly misinformed about the way in which the course would be presented. The accommodation question is a side-issue (had she been living at home, her parents could reasonably have charged her a rent similar that for university accommodation, so the loan was necessary either way).

amandathepanda

She really is a home bird, and if they had offered her course in Newcastle she would have done it . Thanks everyone for your advice.

devildog

iamana1ias Totally agree with you-it totally reduces the value of a degree and just keeps the unemployment figues looking a bit better.

My daughter's 'questionaire' was based on whether she wanted food provided too, cheapness of accomodation,ensuite, sharing with same sex students and how close her preference was to the uni-they had to be put in order of priority and rooms were allocated accordingly.
Voyager I am not forgetting that uni is an institute of higher learning and I did say that independant learning etc also comes into it but I still say it could be condensed and DD is doing a totally new subject with no previous experience of it.
The whole world is probably laughing anyway because students are attending that maybe should not be!

bitsandpieces

Depends what you want from the university. If you are hoping for any money, I'd be very surprised - they may have let your daughter pull out of accommodation early if she had good reason (I don't know whether this would qualify) but she has had the use of the accommodation for all the time for which she was paying for it.

I'd raise it anyway: it's important that the university give out accurate info to future students.

melancholly

i guess i can see the issue, but i think right as the year ends is a bit late to make the complaint if that makes sense..... i don't think there's anything you can do - it may be that in the third year there are daily lectures so the info wasn't techinically incorrect, just not appropriate to your daughter's year group.....

i would see if she can find a way to move back into halls - she's paying for them and missing out on a really important experience of living alone and meeting lots of different people. there may be options to change rooms and i imagine the noise issues will be dealt with more seriously in exam time anyway. it seems like a real shame to me.

GEEGEE8

I'd be really pee'd off too OP.

I don't understand why people are criticising the OP for trying to get some info to help her daughter's position?! What, does being a parent stop when they go to Uni? I'm 26 yrs old and still ask my mums advice even though she is 150 miles away, just a bit of advice from mummy dearest just helps me out sometimes.

I doubt you will get anything back, but it does seem a shame that she has spent so much on so little.

At least she found out after the first year and not the third.

Mankysteve

I've just realised that I miss read the post and i thought the op said she was going to write in. I've since removed the post. I apologise.

minerva_windsong

poet123 wrote: »

A full time course in FE and (much less in HE) can be as little 13 hours per week, so perhaps it is your understanding of the term that is the issue here.

The most contact time I ever had at uni was seven hours a week. Yes really. But I was still expected to work a 40 hour week - reading both the set texts and the secondary reading (and actively reading it, which normally meant reading it at least twice), writing essays, preparing presentations for seminars etc.

The only thing that would concern me about not living in halls is the fact that it might make her isolated from the other students and campus activities (going on nights out, being involved in student societies etc) and she might regret that later on. A friend of mine seriously considered living at home to save money, eventually decided to do it for the first year and ended up not doing it at all. If she's paying for it anyway now I really would encourage her to stay there - OK it's not far to go home but I'm a firm believer that going to uni is a big part of encouraging independence.

On the questionaire thing, my uni didn't do that - well they asked about whether I wanted en suite or not, and stuff like that, but that was about it - and I really wish they had. I ended up on a split corridor with one side who were very close and very into going out, and the side I was on was split between quiet people and noisy people. Don't get me wrong, they were all perfectly nice, but they weren't the sort of people I would have actively chosen to be friends with. No one did my course or was in any of my societies, so I didn't have any friends from that whom I also lived with, and I wish I had. It probably explains why I spent so much of my time at my friend's flat and basically only used my room to eat and sleep.