Accommodation...Grad. Halls or house-share with clinical students? Advice welcome!

[Poppy7]

NB: This is mainly an issue for clincal/grad. entry students, as I believe that almost all (lucky )first year undergraduates are offered accommodation within their college.

Advice from current students would be very welcome...

...I have been offered accommodation in the 'Rober Saunders' graduate halls in Summertown - apparently this is two killometres away from the college (I couldn't find it on Google maps) and presumably at least that far away from the medical sciences building (where most of our lectures will be held?).

While it won't be the ideal situation to be travelling in a 2 km triangle every day between halls, college (for tutorials, & dinner), and the medical sciences building for lectures, I'm thinking that it might be the best option, as I'll be living with other grad. students who have just arrived and (hopefully) will make some good friends...

However, from what I have heard, the course is so intense that if I'm doing two extraciric. activities I may not have the time to really get to know my flatmates anway - and in that case maybe it would be best to live in a house-share with clincial medics (even though I'll probably feel a bit like I'm intruding into their group for the first few months...)

Arrgh, this is really hard to decide on, so any advice is welcome, especially from current medics!

Thanks x

[Poppy7]

PS Yes, it won't be a 2 km triangle... it will probably be more like an equilateial triangle with 2 km sides!

[elles]

My vote preference would probably be college accommodation I think:

- Tis good to get to know people other than medics - you'll spend enough time with medics on the course & as the years go by your social circle will probably shrink to them... So earlier on it's nice to keep it as wide as possible!

- House-share with people you don't know is more of a gamble. At least in college lease there's some sort of standards of acceptable behaviour (e.g. college can kick people out) whereas there are medics I now know that I would definitely not want to live with...


But I would try check where most of your teaching will be (MSTC v. JR v. potential college is quite a difference & potential college for tutorials/dinner every day might not be realistic?) & googlemap all those things to see how doable you think it would be.
Might be helpful to cross-reference with - city council cycle path maps (some parts of Oxford are especially cycle friendly - there is a cut through e.g. north oxford to the bottom of the JR hill) & the bus company route maps (Oxford bus company and stagecoach as quite a few routes run to the hospital).

Hope this helps.

[Ruthette]

Hello! How and when did you hear of your offer of college accommodation? Did you have to apply for it?

I am coming to Somerville this Sep (GE) but have had very little dialogue with the college and they are pretty bad at replying to emails. Want to know what they will offer before I start looking for a house. Perhaps a phone call is needed.

Cheers

[Poppy7]

Thanks for the advice Elles. Yes, it definitely makes sense to find out where I will need to be during the first year, and then use maps and bus/cycle routes to work out the most convenient location to live.

Having said that, living in Halls might be worth it to make friends with other non-medic grads, even if it is out of the way! But at least I’ll be more informed when making the decision

Ruthette: The info. about accommodation was sent out in my offer letter in December. It was just a line really in the college acceptance form, asking me to tick if I wanted to be put on the list.

Good luck tracking down the info from your college. One good thing is that I think it fills up less quickly then undergraduate accommodation, as the deadlines are much later!