Otago Halls of Residence

[greenglacier]

One of the big problems with flatting in first year is that you'll have trouble finding both a good flat and a good crowd of people to flat with, both of which are pretty key to having a good time flatting. There's also a lot to organise, and you have to take care of everything yourself.

In contrast, if you go to a hall, you've just got to turn up a day or so before course approval with whatever you can take down in the plane, and that's pretty much all you have to worry about. You get a nice room, you'll meet lots of new people easily (that's the other advantage of being in a hall in first year - it makes it a lot easier to make new friends), your furniture and bedding will be provided, and all your meals will be cooked for you. It's just easier all around. Plus it's seen as one of those universal experiences of studying at Otago that you wouldn't want to miss out on.

 

[Cathay]

ok thanks cool, so no particular "college" gets like allocated more spots for med or anything right?

Your accommodation status is most irrelevant in terms of admissions. The admissions office doesn't even ask what college you're at, and no, if they wanted to know they'd just ask you because it's a heck of a lot more complicated to go through the records to find out.

OH and what if I don't get a spot at any of the halls? Do i go "flatting" - what's the disadvantage with flatting - apart from having to cater for your own meals?

The following does not deal with any of the organisational parts of flatting, and discusses the disadvantages of being in a reasonable flat with reasonable flatmates compared to being in a college.

First of all, I should mention that sorting out of one's own meals is not a trivial task. Whether you're cooking or getting takeaway, it's a heck of a lot more complicated than "turn up to dining hall at 5.30", and all the worse when you're studying for a test/exam and don't have the time but still have to think about what you're going to eat and how it's going to arrive on your plate.

Also, Dunedin is cold (especially for those living in Australia whose standards for cold is the same as a warm summer's day in Dunedin), so if you're flatting, chances are your flat would not be as well-insulated as the colleges, and any heating you decide to put on goes onto the power bill. You'd end up studying at the library because it's so uncomfortable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's just one of those "quality of life" things.

The other thing is, you'll probably find that the people you flat with are budget-minded (because that's the dominant trend in Dunedin), in which case anything that drags up the bills, whether it be using the clothes dryer, taking a long shower, or just keeping your room comfortably warm, may result in discouragement and/or minor disputes, as well as peer pressure to give up your quality of life.

I know that these things alone aren't hard to deal with, and are suitably minor inconveniences (except the food thing), but, first, it's much better in HSFY if the only thing you had to worry about was studying, and second, anything that undermines your quality of life in the hellish course that is HSFY would make you more homesick and eat away at your determination and motivation to succeed in HSFY, and that's just undesirable.

In short, flatting isn't the worst thing that can happen to you, but it does make life in HSFY much more complicated than it needs to be, so if at all possible I would recommend avoiding it in first year.

PS: Applying late isn't the worst thing that can happen to you in terms of places in colleges, so just get the application in and don't worry that much about it.

 

[Nimbus2000]

thank you so much!

 

[frootloop]

lol dam i already put down alcohol free floor..too late now..but i guess if i want to drink i'll just go to my mates place and go crazy hahaha...and yea i'm quite sad really that i might be put in the 4th street mews cuz the whole point of going to college is get on one of those floors instead of houses again dammit...so u prefer the mews? hrm i might use my headphones as earplugs...

You'll be fine in the alcohol free floors, just go elsewhere to drink
The mews look pretty sweet, to be honest, better than my room in the towers, anyway. Cross for fingers for annexe, the newest and bestest part of UniCol.

 

[greenglacier]

Haha, as someone who has actually gone flatting I can say that cathay makes it sound a lot worse than it really is. Once you get past HSFY it's definitely a really good accommodation option (particularly if you get a good flat and flatmates). It would be a little rough in HSFY though - I'd say primarily for social reasons.

 

[Cathay]

Haha, as someone who has actually gone flatting I can say that cathay makes it sound a lot worse than it really is.

But your flatting experience is when you're a med student

 

[greenglacier]

But your flatting experience is when you're a med student

[offtopic]And you haven't even been flatting

Also, don't forget that I do know what HSFY is like. Not that hard to synthesise that with my experience of flatting to reasonably picture what flatting in HSFY would be like.[/offtopic]

 

[Cathay]

Still, I'd say transition from home straight to flatting makes life in HSFY unnecessarily complicated...

 

[greenglacier]

Still, I'd say transition from home straight to flatting makes life in HSFY unnecessarily complicated...

[offtopic]I'm not disagreeing with that, just taking a little exception to you having a massive rant against flatting having no experience of it yourself.[/offtopic]

 

[Cathay]

GG is right, I did combine experiences to project a full-blown disadvantage list there, so I do apologise if I have perceived and represented flatting as being worse than it is, so here's an overdue disclaimer.

Disclaimer:
The issues with flatting I presented stems from when I looked into/attempted to start organizing flatting, and their effects on HSFY stems from my own personal experience of living at "home" (long story, ended in being stuck with parents in a shitty house 2.5km from uni) and parental cheapness that resulted in somewhat low standards of living, leading to personal dissatisfactions that somewhat shook my determination (all those little "maybe I should've stayed in Christchurch and did engineering" type doubts) at various points along the way.

Any comments on flatting during HSFY is projected (by combining the two), and while they are projected from the truth, they should not be confused as being the truth, so it is somewhat of a "worst case scenario", originally used to encourage acceptance of residential college offers earlier in the thread, when our future health scis were contemplating risking flatting over a perfectly reasonable college because they didn't get into the colleges they wanted.

Should you end up having to go flatting, chances are it will not turn out as badly as I make it sound, but if you do get a residential college offer, even if it's Toroa (which doesn't provide food), it would be advisable to accept the offer, as life may be complicated should you choose flatting.

 

[Ben]

Haha, as someone who has actually gone flatting I can say that cathay makes it sound a lot worse than it really is. Once you get past HSFY it's definitely a really good accommodation option (particularly if you get a good flat and flatmates). It would be a little rough in HSFY though - I'd say primarily for social reasons.

This. Although the other negatives that cathay listed are definitely present, I've been pretty comfortable flatting over the past 2 years, definitely comfortable enough to study in the flat.

 

[Nimbus2000]

gosh, i know NO-ONE so i think i'm going to stick with non-flatting :/ my cooking is beyond terrible too soo lol looks like the halls are my only option - I went through every single one of the halls, and I'm loving pretty much nearly every single one of them - so should I actually bother with ordering them according to which one's BEST, or do you guys think I should just put down random ones since my chances of getting into the ones that i put down are slim anyway?

 

[greenglacier]

You may as well put down the halls you want. Just don't expect to get them.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

Got a serious question here guys:

I'm currently on the general waitlist for the Halls of Residence but I got a scholarship, so they say I'd be guaranteed a place in a residential hall. I've already turned one offer down, and I may have to turn another offer down because I don't like their motto and the fact that they have poly-tech students in it.

So how many times can I turn their residential halls down before they stop making offers to me? Or do they keep offering places indefinitely?
There's only 3 halls of residences that I do not wish to be placed into and I think I'm about to be made an offer from another one of them.


Edit: Today was the last day of school, ever. :'(

 

[Cathay]

I may have to turn another offer down because I don't like their motto and the fact that they have poly-tech students in it.

So how many times can I turn their residential halls down before they stop making offers to me? Or do they keep offering places indefinitely?
There's only 3 halls of residences that I do not wish to be placed into and I think I'm about to be made an offer from another one of them.

I'm not entirely sure that's the best justification for turning a college down, but as froot says, whatever floats your boat...

I'd like to think that it's more about how many times you can go back onto the General Waiting List and still be high enough on it to get into anything by February. In saying so I do presume that each time you reject an offer you go to the bottom of the GWL...

 

[frootloop]

Got a serious question here guys:

I'm currently on the general waitlist for the Halls of Residence but I got a scholarship, so they say I'd be guaranteed a place in a residential hall. I've already turned one offer down, and I may have to turn another offer down because I don't like their motto and the fact that they have poly-tech students in it.

So how many times can I turn their residential halls down before they stop making offers to me? Or do they keep offering places indefinitely?
There's only 3 halls of residences that I do not wish to be placed into and I think I'm about to be made an offer from another one of them.

From this I assume you were offered a place at CityCol. My advice would be to take it, since I thought CityCol looked awesome, the couple of times I went in there I was highly jealous of my friend who lived there. It's modern, warm, and it isn't like polytech students are lesser human beings >.>

 

[Fitzwilliam]

[MENTION=10716]frootloop[/MENTION], your suggestion is to accept any offer -.-

But I'm more picky of where I live - I prefer an older fashioned place, without '21st Century values'. And in my mind polytech students are academically lesser human beings and they might distract me more from my work :/ (Which may seem mean)

I was just wondering if they might think "screw this person, he's rejected so many offers we'll just let him flat by himself". And I obviously don't want to flat by myself.

 

[Crucible]

^
Awww. That sounds harsh. Some people only go to PolyTech coz Unis don't have the courses they want but then again, I may be a little hypocritical since I was about to turn Salmond down because they had PolyTechs too- not because I think they're horrible or non-academic. It'd just be worrying if everyone on the same floor was PolyTech and then all your friends are PolyTechs.......and you have no friends in Uni lol

Was that Salmond you turned down [MENTION=12471]Fitzwilliam[/MENTION]? I ended up accepting their offer since they were my 2nd choice.

Actually, I phoned Accommodation when I was tempted to turn them down and the waiting list isn't numbered. It's just a "pool" of applicants separated into boxes of guys and girls and their specific degrees apparently. So there's actually no telling when another Hall will see your application.

I don't think it's wise to turn it down but since you'll definitely be guaranteed a hall, it's really up to you.

....sorry long post since I'm on a "break" from cramming hahahah

 

[Fitzwilliam]

No, the first one I turned down was Aquinas. I don't mind Salmond; if I got an offer from them I'd accept it.

I don't want to abuse the 'guaranteed a residential hall' part of my scholarship - in theory, I could reject all offers until I got one from St Margaret's (Which is the one I really want to get into) but it wouldn't be right to abuse the system like that.

That pool of applicants make makes me feel more at ease - I won't be at the bottom of the list if I reject City College.

 

[frootloop]

@frootloop , your suggestion is to accept any offer -.-

But I'm more picky of where I live - I prefer an older fashioned place, without '21st Century values'. And in my mind polytech students are academically lesser human beings and they might distract me more from my work :/ (Which may seem mean)

I was just wondering if they might think "screw this person, he's rejected so many offers we'll just let him flat by himself". And I obviously don't want to flat by myself.

Yes, it is always my suggestion, and there's a reason for that.... Although I really do think CityCol is one of the better colleges, to be honest.
And by that reasoning, you should go to a college without any arts or commerce students, or in fact, anyone who isn't doing HSFY or law to an A+ level, because all the other academic incompetents will just be slowing you down (note the heavy lashings of snarkiness in that sentence).
Sigh, do whatever you want, apparently nothing I can say will reduce the paranoia that seems to be induced by something as relatively unimportant as residential college offers.
ETA: I apologise for the obvious exasperation in this post, but seriously...