Student Housing | Moving our of halls | University Housemates

It is easy to overlook it, but the place you are living in can make a huge impact on your studies. Obviously this article is aimed at students living away from home, and I am not going to cover general house hunting tips - this is solely law student orientated.

Halls of Residence

The obvious first question is whether you will continue to live in halls after your first year. From the point of view of a law student, halls offer several major benefits. The main one is lack of stress. If you are in halls and something goes wrong with the room, or you are not in to collect your post_, then there will often be a central office for you to approach.

This sounds like a simple thing but when you have a mountain of reading to do, or several seminars coming up, then believe me, an absence of stress and problems is a great thing. Halls offer a further advantage to law students in that they are often local to the university.

This may not seem to be all that important, but if you are planning to spend a lot of time in the library or computer suite, and by third year you almost certainly will be, then being close to the university will save you precious time, money (no commuting costs) and energy. In many ways halls are a good thing for law students.

However, there are problems with living in halls beyond your first year. The first and major problem is availability. Halls at many universities are primarily intended for new students; therefore they may not even be offered to second and third years.

There are further problems for law students. If your existing housemates don't want to stay in halls then you will have to get used to a new group of housemates. This can be disruptive when you are settling down to do work, the grades for which actually count towards your degree. A further problem is that halls are inherently noisy.

There is always something going on in the form of a party or a prank. Now this is of course a good thing; a break and some fun is essential to a law student's emotional sanity, never mind academic success. The problem with this fun is that when you want to get on with a difficult or complex assignment then peace and quiet may be in short supply.

Halls are undoubtedly an attractive proposition as everything is in one place and reasonably well maintained. The downside is the potential lack of availability, the noise and of course the price.

Private Accommodation

This is the other option available to you once your first year is over and you have decided not to try and stay in halls. It is often significantly cheaper than halls but again from the perspective of a law student there are advantages and disadvantages to this type of accommodation.

The big advantage of living in your own house is the fact that it is often cheaper, and they are usually relatively close to the university so the commute is not really an issue.

However, when the houses are near the university they will often be rows of terraced houses with paper-thin walls. If problems arise in respect of noise, here there is not really a central office you can complain to. If you do choose to search out a house in a quiet area then you may have to pay more in the way of rent and may have to pay to commute.

It is clear, therefore_, that there is little to choose between halls and private residence. The decision will therefore come down to a consensus between you and your housemates. This article will now turn to look at the issues a law student faces with regards to housemates.

Choosing housemates

In many situations students continue to live with the same housemates with whom they lived in their hall of residence, and in many cases they become almost like a family. However, a law student's housemates can have a major effect on their studies. Below are some of the pitfalls and issues which I experienced personally, as well as some I learned about from fellow law students.

• Subject clashes - studying law takes up a great deal of time; often more than many other subjects. This can cause a great deal of conflict between housemates, especially if your housemates are only in university for 2-3 hours a week and approach the few assignments they have as an ordeal. Therefore if they are going to be out partying, it will potentially cause you disruption and sleepless nights. Talking things through can alleviate the problem but if it has wound you up already then I can guarantee it will result in tension by the time you reach the final year. Some caution is advisable.

• You're a lawyer so deal with this - should your household find itself with a problem, such as a landlord who is reluctant to repair a fault, then your housemates will often look to you to solve it. You're a lawyer and this is what lawyers do, after all. Hmmm. Even though you know only enough law to be dangerous to yourself, you can and probably will find yourself dealing with councils trying to claim tax even though you are exempt (If you DO end up in this situation then go to the office in person and get receipts for everything - it stops them trying to pull the wool over your eyes). Dealing with these problems will take up your time and frustrate you no end; especially if your housemates sit at home and leave everything to you. Been there, done that so be warned.

• Lazy housemates - a problem in many homes, but this is something which can be particularly frustrating to a law student. If you are spending several hours a day in the library (and by third year you will be) while your housemates are only in for a few hours a semester, then you will become unbelievably frustrated when you come home and find the place a tip; especially if you have to wash the pots just so you have space to prepare a meal. A roster for chores can help, but you need to be confident your housemates will follow it without you nagging them, and that they will also be somewhat sympathetic to your course. If this is unlikely to happen then prepare for stress and problems.

• Exams and assignments - the nature of a law degree means you will have a lot of assignments. This will become second nature quite quickly. Many courses have a lot less. This means you will become exasperated and annoyed when a housemate insists the whole household be silent whilst they prepare the one brief essay they have to do for tomorrow when it was set two months ago. The subsequent all-nighter and statements the next morning that they have "worked really hard so are going to the pub to celebrate and will not be going to lectures for the rest of the week as it is just not on for the Uni to expect me to do an essay and turn up for 2 lectures in the week." I heard this line in my final year from a housemate who had a 500 word essay and a 1 hour exam to pass his degree. He left the essay for 3 months and spent the 15 hours before the deadline writing it.

I am of course coloured by my own experiences, and I did have some laughs with my housemates. However they drove me to distraction, especially when we were in private housing, and I have not spoken with them since I finished my degree 18 months ago.

Girls in particular need to be wary, as EVERY all-girl household I knew at university fell out and ended up going separate ways within a semester and a half. So be sure before you sign that contract.

In conclusion, if I had to do the course again and knew what I know now I would persuade my housemates to stay in halls. It costs more and you are more restricted but I had less stress whilst living in halls than I did living in private accommodation.

Craig Johnson

Postgraduate in Law

Univeristy of Birmingham

Manchester Metropolitan University

22-09-2009