As you know I am a student at the University of Portsmouth, so this time last year I was preparing to move into halls. I feel like most people write about their first year uni experience, but mine is being written from a completely different perspective. My whole first year was full of an unbelievable amount of bad luck, which in turn made my year, quite frankly a nightmare.
However, before I get started, I don’t want people to read this and become anxious about starting university, because even though I didn’t have the best time socially, I still enjoyed my first year. Also, it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would have the same luck that I did, so settle in and prepare to read about my awful halls experience.
I moved into ‘Margaret Rule Halls’ which was self-catered (Tip: if you are thinking about living here in your first year, DON’T! We’ll get to why later). Anyway, my flat had only 5 people including me and that was the first problem. I made friends with the girls in my flat (or so I thought I did) and we went out together on a couple of occasions, but it soon became very clear that they enjoyed each other’s company way better when I wasn’t there and that made things slightly awkward. Very quickly I became the third wheel and that made me embarrassed so I slowly began to avoid them if I could. This seems like a mistake, but it always felt as if they were laughing at me behind my back and to be honest, more than anything I was just hurt that they didn’t want to be my friend. The 2 boys in my flat also seemed nice enough, but they had their own friendships on their courses. One of the boys in particular made it clear that he didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him either because he frequently helped himself to everybody’s food and never cleaned up after himself.
Months went by and I found myself really miserable in halls. Sometimes I would see one of the girls on their own and they would chat for a while, but as soon as the other girl came in, conversation with me would be cut off. It became so awkward and therefore I ended up cooking dinner earlier than everyone else just to avoid them. This went on for the entire year by the way, so did I make friends in my flat? No.
My time was made even worse due to the sheer hell of living in ‘Margaret Rule’. Damp. Damp clothes, damp bed, damp everything. My room was so damp I had to be compensated £50 because my Converse went mouldy… living there was awful, especially in the winter. If you think about it, UniteStudents were charging £134 per week for this room and the standard was just disgusting. Not only would I be woken up to condensation dripping on my face every morning, but the shower floor was mouldy and had been since the first week. The washing machines never worked, and you were charged £5 for one wash and “dry”. The amount of times I complained was ridiculous, I still have the number for the duty manager of UniteStudents! In case you’re wondering, the damp was never fixed or even looked at, my mum bought me a small radiator to try and alleviate the problem which luckily it did because it was so cold all the time. (I also had a laptop charger go missing over Christmas... honestly, it was such a great place to live).
So obviously this was a lot of bad luck. If I had been in another halls I obviously wouldn’t have had the damp issue and maybe I would have been in a flat with more people. I might have met people who I got on with better and that could have completely changed my experience, who knows?
However, even though that was all pretty miserable, I still loved my room. I made it my own with a big cosy duvet, photographs everywhere and cute little ornaments from home. I had so much pinned on my noticeboard, like freshers’ wristbands, photobooth photos and cards from home. My room was still where I was happiest, and I would say to anyone about to move into halls, personalise it as much as you can as it really makes it feel more like home!
So, my halls experience? Pretty shitty, can’t really think of anything worse, but hey I still look back with such fond memories of my lovely damp room. It’s almost laughable now how awful it was, and I feel like when I’m old, I’ll be telling my grandkids how hard I had it in my day with the notorious Margaret Rule Hall… (seriously though don’t live there).
A x