Questions? Im in my first year so I can help

Hey all, guessing your all really nervous/stressed/excited.

But yeah Im in my first year doing theology and religious studies living at the grange so let me no if you wnat to quiz me about york, the uni or student life in general :D

xox 

Ditto. First year BSc Psychology here, living at The Grange as well. I'll come back when I'm bored and answer any questions :).

Holly, are you in 106 Baldwin? I'm pretty sure I ran into you in 105 Baldwin in fresher's week. You were complaining about your flatmates having a party and leaving you to clean up the sick or something, lol. It was either you or someone who looks a hell of a lot like you.

Hey all, I'm ALSO a first year BA English Language and Linguistics, and I'm perfectly happy to answer any questions!

 Seems like there's more Old Johns than New ones! Hehe

I'm coming in september....

How long does it take to Leeds, and how much is it normally?

Also whats the best accommodation?  I'm going to an open day, and I kind of want to be in the new building coz its new haha but I don't know how close all of these places are to the city centre.

Thanks

I think it takes about half an hour to Leeds and it's about £10, £6.50 with a railcard. Joe would be better to answer that question, lol.

Best accomodation? It depends what you want out of it, really. The Grange is the most sociable, I guess, and there's more parties there than there are on other sites but at City Residence you get your own bathroom and internet that works and Limes Court is kinda posh (compared to Grange, anyway, lol).

The closest to the uni (and city centre) is Lord Mayor's Walk, which is on campus, but it's expensive for what it is. It kinda feels like a hospital inside, you get meal vouchers than you can only use when the canteen is open and you have to clear your stuff out over the holidays (even Christmas, though I'm not sure about Easter. After that it's City and Grange. City is supposed to be closer but it's rougly the same distance. In fact, City is right next to Grange. And if you're at City or Grange you get the nice smell of chocolate from the Nestlé factory on some days :). Limes is supposedly quite a treck, but I've never walked there so I can't really say. I think the new accomodation is supposed to be the same distance away as Limes, maybe a little bit closer. Holgate Hall is miles out. It takes about an hour to walk there and it's kinda out in the middle of nowhere. And it's right next to a school. But the rooms are freaking HUGE. They could easily fit double beds into the ones I've seen and still have more than enough room to move around. I'm not sure, but I think they might be getting rid of Holgate Hall for the coming year.

If you're looking for somewhere close to the city centre, I'd suggest Grange or City. They're not that far from Sainsbury's and Morrisson's, either. The only problem with the Grange is that the gates are locked at 11 every night (unless security forget to close them), so you either have to walk the long way by the Foss or walk down an alley next to City (which is the quickest option). And the internet doesn't work properly. If you get connected to it you're very lucky. Hopefully they'll fix it before they jack the prices up. The kitchens are quite small in some of the houses and the fridgefreezers are a bit too small to hold food for five people but it's all good; you just have to buy less and shop more often :).

I'd say the Grange is the best place to be if you're sociable :).

The thing is, though, they don't seem to have any sort of method when allocating accomodation. You could apply for ensuite and get catered, etc. And they don't allocate according to distance. When I was waiting to hear about accomodation there were people in Newcastle and London who had been told they weren't getting accomodation and could they commute when people who lived like five miles away from the uni were getting accomodation. And I think the older you are the less likely you are to get accomodation. It seemed to be mainly people over the age of 20 who were getting uni houses and nothing when I applied. And most people I've met in accomodation were either 18 or 19 when they started. So it doesn't really matter what you put as your preference 'cause it's all luck, really. I think I was one of the last people to hear this year and I ended up getting a house on the Grange, which was my second choice (you can't say which accomodation, you get three boxes to number; 'self-catered ensuite', 'self-catered' and 'catered'). It's worth looking at accomodation at open days but it won't help you in any way. You can't say that you want to be on the Grange or Limes, you just have to tick 'self-catered' and hope for the best.

A word of warning, though. After you get your results, do NOT come on here or any Facebook groups or anything until you hear about accomodation, lol. You will never be so stressed as you are when people are saying they're being refused accomodation and you haven't heard anything yet.

Oh, and one last thing about accomodation. If you have friends that are going to York St. John, I'm pretty sure you can ask to be put in the same flat/house as them. I've heard that it happened this year.

Damn, I waffled on.

Sarah, that was one long post! Haha. You have far too much free time on your hands.

 In reply to Bens post;

Hey Ben, I'm from Leeds and costs me £9.30 return to York from Cross Gates (the stop after Leeds). I actually think it ay be cheaper from Leeds-York, maybe £9.10. It takes about 25mins, and then it's about a 20min walk to to the Uni from the station.

I think the best accommodation is The Grange (but I'm biased lol), tbh, there is no bad accommodation, they all have something different to offer. You just gotta make the most out of what you've got, it''ll be awesome!

What can I say? I just seem to wake up when everyone else goes to bed, lol :P.

Yah, the Grange rules.

Haha thanks, that must have taken ages to write Sarah

I don't really mind where I am, i'd just rather be self catered, and be in a sociable place.  

I don't know anything about applying for accommodation yet, i'm not really organised.  I hope they'll just send em a letter. 

Hia,

I've got a conditional offer from ysj and am hoping to start there in September.

Just wondering something though, on my ucas application i put i would be staying at home and travelling but i've changed my mind now and i want accomodation. Will they still send me info anyway and do you think i'll still be able to get accomodation?

I'm so looking forward to starting i'm studying film and tv production. I've been to an open day and it looks great!

:)

I'd disagree Sarah, just because it's not Newcastle and doesn't have the metro, doesn't mean it's boring!!!! Hehe. Think we need to FINALLY take you to the dungeons for the day! Hehe.

 The city is amazing, I mean c'mon, it's York! There's all the usual shops to keep you entertained, plus it's 20mins away from Leeds (which has a primark! lol - that usually interests people). Plus there's so many things to do (with student discount), so you can always do touristy things;

-Dungeons

-Jorvik

-National Railway Museum

-Miniture Rail Museum

-Walk the Walls

-Ghost Walks

-Boat trips

-City tour bus

-many more (which I can't think of).

As for nightlife (which lets face it, is most important!), the two main clubs are Toffs and Gallery, good bars include Varsity, Yates, Vodka Rev. Blue Fly, Bmp, Flares, Nexus. Cocktail bars are Dusk (2-4-1 cocktails Mon-Thurs), Rumours. And finally good pubs are Keystones, Cross Keys, Nags head (triples for singles), Lowther, Independant, the Gillygate and many more we're yet to try out. There's 365 pubs in York, one for every day of the year! Hehe.

Also there are plenty of restaurants to try out (if you're lucky enough to be abe to afford to eat! lol).

 So there's no excuse to get bored! Hehe. The university has a great atmosphere, YSJ is a small uni and therefore the student body is closer knit than larger universities. Freshers fortnight has such a good atmosphere and you get to meet everyone and anyone, granted you may never see these people again, but I met people in freshers week who I'm still friends with. If you're still in your shell ten Freshers fortnight will really help your confidence, once people see you wasted then you wont care what they think! Hehe.

 Anyway I'm writing a bit of an essay here (wish I spent this amount of time on my assignments! lol). But hope this helps! :D

Joseph

Joe - The shops are small, they're all miles away from each other and there is no cinema (apart from City Screan, which only shows artsy films and is kind of a ripoff) in the town centre!

And name one of those things that we have actually done, lol. And walking the walls doesn't count since we didn't walk all of them and we only walked the part we did coz we were lost trying to find that Army shop, lol.

It is awesome at night, though :).

*cough* Freshers. I wonder if anyone else will be able to steal themselves an afro? I just want to know how the hell you found an afro at a beach party, lol.

Jem - Psychology is good. I can't say anything for when you get there but the class I'm in now is a good mix of people, everyone is friendly. The lecturers are good, too...well, most of them, lol. There's one who seems a bit eccentric but you'll just laugh it off. But regardless, they're all friendly and willing to help. In the first year, it's more or less adding buts on to what you did at A Level so you'll be at an advantage if you did A Level Psychology. And you do a Psychobiology module, which will be easier if you took A Level Biology. But watch out, you'll get plagiarism workshops/information pretty much rammed down your throat. And you should probably not turn up to the library/learning centre induction during Welcome Week. The exact same talk is given for one of the psych modules and believe me, you do not want to sit through that **** twice. You actually will lose the will to live.