Daughter Starting Uni?

Katgoddess

I spent a week at Sussex University last year for an Open University residential course.

I would definitely recommend Lewes Court (Phase2?) as they are like hotel rooms! You get an ensuite bathroom with a shower and toilet. Your room is inside a flat with 5 other people and you share a living room/dining room/kitchen. The kitchen is good with the basic oven, microwave, fridge and a stand alone freezer. Also has a iron and ironing board and lockable cupboards.

This is a photo I took of the room. Sad aren't I?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/katgodddess23/SXR103%20Summer%20School/P7250017.jpg

The one and only problem with Sussex is the lack of mobile phone reception in the halls. By angling my phone on the window, I was able to get text messages, but had to go outside to make phonecalls. There is a phone in each room which has its own external line so you can call to make sure she is ok.

crana999

The only thing is that you will probably pay through the nose for a room as nice as that with an ensuite..

Js_Other_Half

crana999 wrote:

The only thing is that you will probably pay through the nose for a room as nice as that with an ensuite..

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/publications/ugrad2006/where_to_live

Lewes Court

About 500 students live in the Lewes Court flats, which are designed for groups of five or six students. The accommodation includes 250 en-suite rooms, 238 standard rooms, a few self-contained studios with en-suite bathrooms, and some two-bedroom family flats.
Rents

In the 2004-2005 academic year, the rents ranged between £58 and £68 per week for standard accommodation, £79 for an ensuite study room and £82 for a studio, prices which compare favourably with many universities around the country. The majority of rooms are let on an academic-year basis October to June).

pavlovs_dog

^that sounds about right.

i was in a newly built ensuite room self catered, and paid £79.50 a week (it was my one extravagence...spend the money on bus fare commuting from the student village or on having my own loo and shower...tough decision :rotfl: )

crana999

Dang!
Mine is £62.80 a week plus an extra charge of £10 odd a week plus electricity plus internet charges.

My room's an OK size, but it has no heating I can control, crappy windows that rattle and let draughts through, share the bath with 11 other people etc..

Next year I'm paying ~£80/week (again, leccy, internet, and the 10-a-week charge not included..) for a nicer room (it was the only way I could stay in college) but it still doesn't have ensuite, still share the kitchen and bathrooms with loads of other people.

dammit! I could have a studio no less in Sussex for less money! I do currently get a 10% discount for being a fire warden, which I really hope I get next year.

Loadsabob

Oh, I'm here too later, everyone's come up with brilliant suggestions! From my own experience though:

Things I took and never used:

Wok - too big when you're sharing four rings between 7!!!
Mending kit - I can't remember losing any buttons...
Shoe cleaning kit - what WAS I thinking?!!
Iron - I didn't iron for three years, no need!

Things that proved invaluable:

Drawing pins - we had a carpeted pinboard on one whole wall in halls (blu-tak was banned)
Couple of bottles of wine for getting to know hall mates the first week. And corkscrew!
Oven gloves - nobody else had thought of them.
First aid kit - things for headaches, indigestion, plasters, safety pins, just a small one.
Stamps - really useful! DIdn't need paperl I wrote letters on my A4 pad.
Printer - a very small one, for use with old PC. Saved me on print charges and queues at the library
Extension lead and cube.
Measuring jug
Medium saucepan, smaller saucepan, omlette pan. No more pans.
Clothes airer - I handwashed for a year as I couldn't face the scrum of the launderette!

A herb / spice / seasonings / flavourings tin or box sounds brilliant, giving all the help needed to make something edible out of anything!

Cash book? I used one for three years, it was a real help to see where my money was going. If she will have a computer, how about a blank budgeting spreadsheet on floppy disk, to be filled in as she goes along?!

I only took two of each crockery / cutlery item, and that was enough. Also one big and one small sharp knife. It was plenty.

I'll shut up now, as I can't think of anything else that hasn't been mentioned!

student100

catznine wrote:

Lots of good ideas here! I don't have a lot to add as most of it has been covered.

After a fairly chaotic first year, money wise, one thing that we did do at the start of our daughters 2nd year (at her request) was to open a bank account in our name and paid her student loan cheque in plus our monthly contribution - out of this we arranged direct debits to her landlady to pay her rent and also to deposit a regular sum of money into her own account. This meant that she never had to worry about her rent being paid and also that she knew she could rely on a regular sum of money coming into her bank account to cover food, bus fares etc. This also encouraged her to budget (fairly successfully most months) for all her expenses.

As I said earlier we didn't do this until her 2nd year when she was out of halls and into private rented accomodation. Apparently one of friends had this system set up from the 1st year and it worked very well. Don't know what anyone else would think about this but our daughter says it worked very well for her.

hth

She could always do this herself, there's no reason not to have more than one student account (or say a student account with a linked web savings account) if it helps her budget.

Savvy_Sue

filigree wrote:

Perhaps soon-to-be students could be given a small budget and set a task of shopping and cooking for one family meal a week, there's nothing like hands-on practice.

It starts for my eldest the moment his exams finish - although TBH I don't know why I don't start now! He's got no exams for the next two weeks, and I don't think he did any academic work last week (half-term) and when I asked about today's outstanding achievements there wasn't a lot of anything on the list! Certainly not finishing off his loan application form - THERE'S ONLY THE QUESTIONS I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS TO LEFT, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, IT WILL ONLY TAKE YOU FIVE MINUTES! JUST DO IT WILL YOU! - or finishing tidying his room to see whether or not his first choice Uni has sent him any info about accommodation - "I can't remember if they have or not!"

He did do some washing up, I suppose, and he does his own laundry and he CAN cook, just prefers not to make the decisions about what we're going to eat, so the house-training has started.

Anyway, rant over. I was wondering how we're supposed to get it all into a Yaris, but at least he hasn't picked up my trick and chosen somewhere about as far from home as it's possible to get.

In the good old days there was Passenger's Luggage in Advance! That's how my school trunk used to get to and from Uni, while I went on the coach!

Are duffle coats still 'de rigeur' anywhere? I remember melting in mine getting across London on my way home at Christmas!

Bargain_Rzl

crana999 wrote:

The only thing is that you will probably pay through the nose for a room as nice as that with an ensuite..

Was at York 1996-99 and in the name of equality, ALL on-campus accommodation was the same price, regardless of quality!

The majority of accommodation ranged from grotty little broom-cupboards in Wentworth C-block (Yes Wentworth. As in Prisoner Cell Block H.) to basic but large rooms in Derwent. All had shared showers and toilets, and really vile kitchens with only 30-year-old Baby Bellings to cook on :eek: :eek:

Second from top end of the accommodation pile was Langwith D-block which had just been refurbished - the rooms were small but they each had a tiny plastic caravan-style ensuite shoved in the corner where there wasn't really room for it.

And then there was James College and Alcuin E-block, which had ensuite bathrooms IN PROPER ROOMS and kitchens with GAS COOKERS. Turning up on the first day of freshers' week to discover that I had effectively won the lucky dip and was in Alcuin E-block was fantastic - and at about £35 a week!!!! We adopted a corridor from C-block so they could share our lovely kitchen. The best part was that the E-block fire alarm system was separate from the rest of the college, so if somebody got p i s s e d and burnt their bacon sandwich at 3am, the E-block residents could remain tucked up in bed while all around them were being evacuated

crana999

eh. If it meant all rooms were really cheap I'd go for that, but otherwise I'd prefer to "pays my money and takes my choice".