By Rhiannon Thefaut, BA International Business Management
In first year, my flat decided to live together in second year. However, I was going abroad for my second year and so couldn’t live with them. Instead, I agreed to live with them all in third year and assumed that was that. However, after some disagreements whilst I was away, this was no longer an option. I then had to rethink what I wanted to do.
I am originally from Chesterfield, which is an 11-minute train journey or a 30-minute drive from Sheffield. Therefore, one option for me was to move home and commute to University. Whilst this isn’t an option for everyone, depending how far Sheffield is from your family home, however, it may be something to consider. It’s likely in third year you’ll have less contact hours (and more study hours), so it is an option. Just note if you do commute, your maintenance loan will be significantly less – however, you won’t have the same living costs, so it evens out.
My second option was to live with 2 of my friends from first year. This is the option I took, as I decided that I wanted to have the live-in university experience in Sheffield again, as I enjoyed it so much in first year. However, the main issue for me was that, I had to trust my friends to sort the accommodation. We were on different time zones, and had different free time, meaning that I couldn’t even facetime them to see the places.
The third option is to live with strangers again; this is probably not the most popular idea, however, it can lead to making some really great new friends. There is the facebook page ‘Sheffield student accommodation’ and websites such as ‘Campusboard’ where you can find people who have spare rooms available for the following year.
The last option is to live on your own in a studio or 1 bedroom flat. Honestly, after my year abroad, I felt a strong sense of autonomy and responsibility. I was probably ready to live alone and that may be how some of you feel. A year abroad gives you so much freedom and builds your confidence, meaning that sometimes moving back and living with your friends isn’t the same. Your friends can still visit, but you don’t have the added stress of dealing with their mess or their noise – which is always nice!
My last piece of advice would be, make sure to decide what you want to do early on. As you probably remember from first year, students start deciding who they’re living with and where quite early (October onwards). You need to make sure you look too! It’s quite difficult when you can’t visit the place yourself, so, get them to do a skype call to show you it or get one of your friends to visit for you – it’s vital to make sure the place is legitimate and suits your needs.