Things to Consider When Choosing Student Accommodation

1: Food

Food glorious food! This comes in on top of the list for many reasons. Firstly, maintaining a healthy diet and eating nutritious food is very important in helping you manage uni workloads. Having access to good food is important to consider because it will set you up for success in study! The second reason it’s top of the list, is because buying, preparing and cooking this nutritious food can be both time consuming, and costly. 

Consider how much you enjoy cooking and how much time you have spare to prepare meals when choosing where you live. At residential colleges like University Hall, a number of catered meals are included in your rent each week, which can ease the financial load, and is super convenient for those who don’t enjoy cooking meals. 

2: Cost of Living

Continuing on from the cost of food is the overall cost of living independently. There’s lots of lifestyle, entertainment and daily costs to consider when living on a student budget, including:

• Food
• Internet
• Utilities
• Cleaning
• TV
• Transport
• Gym membership
• And so much more

What comes into your budget depends on what is important to your lifestyle – you might choose to save on rent by sharing a house with friends, or you may prefer to spend more on rent to have a private apartment where you don’t need to share facilities.

We’ve compared the cost of living at University Hall to that of living in a share house. Check out the results here!

3: Friends

Another consideration when choosing where to live is your friends. Having friendships and connections in your personal life can enhance your experiences as you study in Perth. 

If you’re moving away from you friends and family to study in Perth at UWA and don’t know anyone else in Perth, living in a community like University where you make friends quickly and easily might be important to you.

Maybe a group of your friends are also moving to Perth for study. Living in the same area, residential college or sharing a house with them are all options to explore. 

4: Transport

Your transport options, and how you move to and from uni, work and other activities is another key factor when deciding where to live. 

Consider how far your commute to uni is, and whether you’ll take public transport or drive to uni. Parking at uni requires a parking permit or involves daily parking fees. If you’re taking public transport, consider the fare cost and the total time spent on your route to uni. Your timetable could also play a role in your choices here, whether you have a full day of classes, or just a single short class on one day. Living in a residential college means your commute to class is just a few minutes’ walk. 

If you have your own vehicle and need this for travelling to work etc, parking arrangements at your accommodation is another important consideration. Some accommodation options like share houses could have parking included, whereas parking at residential colleges might be limited and come with additional fees to rent. University Hall offers parking at an additional cost, which both secure underground or external options available.

5:Support Networks

This falls into a similar category to friends, but your personal support networks can be larger than your friends, especially when you choose to live on campus at a residential college. University Hall has a structured support system to help look out for the welfare for all students during their time living and studying at UWA. This includes:

• Residential Advisors who provide the first port of day to day support for things like getting locked out of your room, and undertake daily duty rounds of University Hall to support students after hours, 
• Residential Life staff who live on site and provide pastoral care for all residents, from supporting students with out of hours emergencies to helping direct students to access support services. 
• Our partnership with UWA Security, who facilitate our after-hours support call requests and conduct regular rounds of our campus throughout the day and night.