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Medicine at Swansea University
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Accommodation at Swansea

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Reply 60
There's a car park by the Uni which is £2 all day, and I think between 7pm and 7am there is limited parking on campus.

Also, as a current village resident, I feel the need to defend some things which have been thrown about.

1) We do get cleaners on a weekly basis, sometimes they claim to be under staffed and only remove rubbish bins and go, but on the whole they do a decent job.
2) Noise levels can get a little loud, but security are usually quite quick to nip it in the butt, especially around exam periods.
3) Village Rent + Bus Pass < Campus Rent. Unless you get a 36 week contract on campus, then they work out fairly similar over the year.
Medicine at Swansea University
Swansea University
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Reply 61
Hey everyone :smile:

Just firmed Swansea for this September. Can anyone already there (or maybe even those people starting at the same time) recommend which is the best accomodation to go for please? And why?

Thanks v much for your time!
There are two choices and it really depends what you are looking for

Student Village (where I lived) is the cheaper option. this is a bunch of houses full of students and is famed for its party atmosphere. Its all self catered with proper kitchens so you ca cook yourself. the downside is that its a little bit out of the way and you'll need to get a bus to uni/town unless you are motivated enough to walk it.

Campus is a little more expensive and you have the option of chosing catering packages so you get meals at uni and dont have to really cook much. But in my opinion the uni food isnt up to much anyway. Good thing is you are right next to uni so you can roll out of bed into lectures. I'm not really sure about the atmosphere on campus as I didnt live there but I hear its a bit quieter than the village, although of course there are a fair share of parties there too!

Hope some of that has helped.
Reply 63
Mousickle
There are two choices and it really depends what you are looking for

Student Village (where I lived) is the cheaper option. this is a bunch of houses full of students and is famed for its party atmosphere. Its all self catered with proper kitchens so you ca cook yourself. the downside is that its a little bit out of the way and you'll need to get a bus to uni/town unless you are motivated enough to walk it.

Campus is a little more expensive and you have the option of chosing catering packages so you get meals at uni and dont have to really cook much. But in my opinion the uni food isnt up to much anyway. Good thing is you are right next to uni so you can roll out of bed into lectures. I'm not really sure about the atmosphere on campus as I didnt live there but I hear its a bit quieter than the village, although of course there are a fair share of parties there too!

Hope some of that has helped.


Thanks for that really appreciate it :smile: It did help a lot!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you and friends work nights out when in the student village? I'd assume a lot of things go on at the campus, so would you have to be getting back from there at all hours?

Also do you think living on campus greatly affects social life?

thanks again, you rock!
Ususaly for nights we would get a group together to get a taxi back from town/campus, its works out pretty cheap if you have a bunch of you in one of those big people carrier taxis. Only problem I had was that I had a lot of friends that didnt live at the village so if I was out with them would have to pay for a taxi on my own which is waaay too expesive like upto about £8.

The people I've known that live on capus still have perfectly good social lives but I think they tend more to go out to the little club thats on uni where as at the village there are a lot of houseparties as its a lot more suited to that than campus. campus also has the advantage of being miutes away from the beach so lots easier for spontanious beachparties when its sunny.
Reply 65
pipsi
It's naff unless they've done it up since i left three years ago. The rooms are ensuite but it's more like a wet room than a proper bathroom, you can't leave loo paper or towels in it when you have a shower because they'll get wet. It used to be part catered in my day too, not sure if there are other options available for it now.


is preseli that bad? because i am seriously considering preseli, it's the cheapest for self catered medium sized room for 40 weeks contract. i m an international student, btw. maybe someone who is currently living in swansea uni/ preseli or recently graduated can give more insight? how's the room?
Reply 66
AVOID Tykoon lettings ltd, issues such as damp were not fixed, problems were ignored or took weeks to be looked at and they took lots of money off deposit for trivial wear and tear issues.
I've put preseli as my first choice for september 2009 it seemed all right to me.
Reply 68
33godsend
is preseli that bad? because i am seriously considering preseli, it's the cheapest for self catered medium sized room for 40 weeks contract. i m an international student, btw. maybe someone who is currently living in swansea uni/ preseli or recently graduated can give more insight? how's the room?


If it is the same as if was when i was last in Swansea (visited June 2008) they are pretty bad, not horrendous but certainly lacking in home comforts. They are clean enough but just no where near as nice as the newer en suite accommodation. However when i last lived in halls (moved out June 2007) none of the new accommodation buildings were catered so to get a catered en suite package Preseli was the only option. However it was possible when i was there to live in one of the new buildings and buy a pre-paid food card which gave you discounts if you paid termly etc so that you could essentially get a food package as well as living in the new halls. Not sure if this is still available though, give the head of catering a ring to ask, just ask for them when you ring the main uni number which gets you through to the switchboard.
Reply 69
(im not applying until september but ive heard from a friend's mother who'd son went to swansea)

.. apparently if you do live (im guessing this is on campus?) with a shared bathroom you only ever share with one other person, and they get cleaned at least once a day

if you have your own bathroom you do have to clean it yourself and can sometimes get pretty gross
Reply 70
has anyone got or seen pictures of the different types of accomodation ?
think they need to put something like this on the website really,

i went to the open day this week and joined on at the end of a student village tour,
only got to see the flat which was so outdated and did smell really bad

what are the houses like in the village
and is the accomodation on campus flats ?
Amz567
(im not applying until september but ive heard from a friend's mother who'd son went to swansea)

.. apparently if you do live (im guessing this is on campus?) with a shared bathroom you only ever share with one other person, and they get cleaned at least once a day

if you have your own bathroom you do have to clean it yourself and can sometimes get pretty gross


i lived on campus this year, Kilvey, Cefn Bryn and Rhossilli are the buildings on campus with shared bathrooms. I'm not sure of the ratio of bathroom/ toilet to person in Rhossilli but I would think its not many as its only a 2 storey building.

The ration for Kilvey is 5:1 and Cefn Bryn is about 3:1. The cleaners clean them probably a few times a week.
The cleaners are not allowed in your rooms so if you have your own bathroom, its your own responsibility to clean it.
Amz567
has anyone got or seen pictures of the different types of accomodation ?
think they need to put something like this on the website really,

i went to the open day this week and joined on at the end of a student village tour,
only got to see the flat which was so outdated and did smell really bad

what are the houses like in the village
and is the accomodation on campus flats ?


The flats up the village are outdated but I think the majority of the houses up in the village have newish kitchens fitted a few years ago.

On campus the old buildings - Cefn Bryn, Preseli and Kilvey have 9 floors and are not split into flats but have so many people to a floor.

Caswell, Langland, Oxwich, Penmaen and Horton all have flats of 8.
Reply 73
hey steph do you do media? That's what im coming to do in september! do you like it?
Reply 74
Stephaniieee24
The flats up the village are outdated but I think the majority of the houses up in the village have newish kitchens fitted a few years ago.

On campus the old buildings - Cefn Bryn, Preseli and Kilvey have 9 floors and are not split into flats but have so many people to a floor.

Caswell, Langland, Oxwich, Penmaen and Horton all have flats of 8.




Hey steph do you do media?
That's what I'm coming to do in September...would you recommend? And what's your view on the uni as a whole?
Clarem123
Hey steph do you do media?
That's what I'm coming to do in September...would you recommend? And what's your view on the uni as a whole?


Hey, yeah I just passed the first year. Are you applying to do the media course or screen studies?

I would recommend Swansea Uni to anyone, there's a lovely vibe on campus and feels very close knit as you get to know people from all different courses and students from the 2nd and 3rd years. If your going to be living on campus, its a great advantage as of course your nearer to going to lectures but your also near all the conveniences like the nightclub with tooters on a Friday, that is a must! Jc's the pub for cheap drinks and there's a takeaway kebab style shop which do amazing pizzas!

And we did have some great weather down Swansea from around mid March, so as the University is opposite the sea, we were always down there like other students and would have BBQ's and beach parties.

Also the night life is pretty good! We are lucky to have most things on one street - Wind St and they do really good deals on drinks for students and there's a bar called La Cantina which does £1 shots!

The media course itself is great, The first year modules do cover some work if you have done media studies or film studies for As/ A Level but a bit more advanced. You can message me on here if you want to find out more about what you will be studying.

I can't wait to go into my 2nd year as the modules are going to be more interesting. Also you will feel like your on holidays! You only have 3 x 2 hour lectures a week! And the seminars are like every 2 weeks throughout the term - each module has 4 seminars a term.

Hope this helps :smile:
Reply 76
Stephaniieee24
i lived on campus this year, Kilvey, Cefn Bryn and Rhossilli are the buildings on campus with shared bathrooms. I'm not sure of the ratio of bathroom/ toilet to person in Rhossilli but I would think its not many as its only a 2 storey building.

The ration for Kilvey is 5:1 and Cefn Bryn is about 3:1. The cleaners clean them probably a few times a week.
The cleaners are not allowed in your rooms so if you have your own bathroom, its your own responsibility to clean it.


I've lived in Caswell and Langland and also spent a few weeks in Rhossilli right at the beginning of my first year. I shared two bathrooms (one with a bath, the other with a shower adapted for disabled use) with six people in Rhossilli, they were indeed cleaned (although not very well i may add, probably a quick squirt of bleach in the loo and a wipe over for the bath and sink) about three times a week. Bins were emptied once a week if you left them outside of your room on the set day. I also had a sink in my room, not sure if this was cleaned once a week as i never seemed to be in when the cleaners came round, i only lived there for about four weeks.

In Caswell and Langland, i had an en suite room, a cleaner came and did the bathroom once a week (again i wasn't overly impressed with the standard and actually complained a few times and told them i'd rather do it myself but was told the cleaners needed to 'check' rooms once a week and clean them). Again if bins were left outside the room or next to the bathroom door they'd be emptied too, as these halls are self catered the kitchen would also be cleaned (provided it was already 'clean' ie all dishes washed and put away and benches tidy) so pretty much all the cleaner did was wipe the benches and tables and mop the floor. Occasionally (maybe once a term generally during the holidays) they would clean out the fridges and ovens. Communal floors are hoovered once a week.

We seemed to have a constant battle with cleaners as they seemed to do the bare minimum and would often refuse to do anything in the kitchen if someone had for example left their breakfast dishes (even if it was just a bowl spoon and a glass) in the sink because they were running late. In my first year (moved from Rhossilli to Langland) 5 out of the 8 people in my flat lived like pigs and it always ended up that the three of us who were generally clean and tidy ended up doing the dishes that had piled up from the others the night before the cleaner came so that the kitchen was 'clean' enough for her to do it. I was convinced that the odd bottle of shower gel or something went missing from my room and a couple of other people commented that they thought stuff had disappeared like the odd loo roll, tampons etc (but that was probably just been our cleaner).

I know other flats used to have better experiences with their cleaners, one group i knew told me their cleaner used to do their dishes and would even clean their bedrooms for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Guess it's just luck of the draw. In my first year our cleaner was a bit of a witch, at Christmas we decorated the corridor and kitchen only to find that she tore down all of the decorations and binned them without even asking us to remove them because they were breaking some sort of rule. She also ripped up and binned a load of photos someone put on my door as a surprise for me on my birthday, needless to say we were a bit upset that she had destroyed our photos when she could have asked someone to remove them or simply taken them down and telling us we weren't allowed them on the doors. However, there wasn't any rule to say we couldn't put posters up etc (as long as blutac was used), other flats with different cleaners had all sorts of things up on walls and hanging from the ceilings and nothing was said.
pipsi
I've lived in Caswell and Langland and also spent a few weeks in Rhossilli right at the beginning of my first year. I shared two bathrooms (one with a bath, the other with a shower adapted for disabled use) with six people in Rhossilli, they were indeed cleaned (although not very well i may add, probably a quick squirt of bleach in the loo and a wipe over for the bath and sink) about three times a week. Bins were emptied once a week if you left them outside of your room on the set day. I also had a sink in my room, not sure if this was cleaned once a week as i never seemed to be in when the cleaners came round, i only lived there for about four weeks.

In Caswell and Langland, i had an en suite room, a cleaner came and did the bathroom once a week (again i wasn't overly impressed with the standard and actually complained a few times and told them i'd rather do it myself but was told the cleaners needed to 'check' rooms once a week and clean them). Again if bins were left outside the room or next to the bathroom door they'd be emptied too, as these halls are self catered the kitchen would also be cleaned (provided it was already 'clean' ie all dishes washed and put away and benches tidy) so pretty much all the cleaner did was wipe the benches and tables and mop the floor. Occasionally (maybe once a term generally during the holidays) they would clean out the fridges and ovens. Communal floors are hoovered once a week.

We seemed to have a constant battle with cleaners as they seemed to do the bare minimum and would often refuse to do anything in the kitchen if someone had for example left their breakfast dishes (even if it was just a bowl spoon and a glass) in the sink because they were running late. In my first year (moved from Rhossilli to Langland) 5 out of the 8 people in my flat lived like pigs and it always ended up that the three of us who were generally clean and tidy ended up doing the dishes that had piled up from the others the night before the cleaner came so that the kitchen was 'clean' enough for her to do it. I was convinced that the odd bottle of shower gel or something went missing from my room and a couple of other people commented that they thought stuff had disappeared like the odd loo roll, tampons etc (but that was probably just been our cleaner).

I know other flats used to have better experiences with their cleaners, one group i knew told me their cleaner used to do their dishes and would even clean their bedrooms for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Guess it's just luck of the draw. In my first year our cleaner was a bit of a witch, at Christmas we decorated the corridor and kitchen only to find that she tore down all of the decorations and binned them without even asking us to remove them because they were breaking some sort of rule. She also ripped up and binned a load of photos someone put on my door as a surprise for me on my birthday, needless to say we were a bit upset that she had destroyed our photos when she could have asked someone to remove them or simply taken them down and telling us we weren't allowed them on the doors. However, there wasn't any rule to say we couldn't put posters up etc (as long as blutac was used), other flats with different cleaners had all sorts of things up on walls and hanging from the ceilings and nothing was said.


Your cleaners came into your room? We got told they wasnt allowed. I was in preseli and our cleaners were terrible! Always complaining about "fire hazards" and state of kitchens when i had seen some in a worse state than ours and our floor was like the meeting place for all preseli cleaners to have a cup of tea in their cupboard which was opp my door. I used to get woken up nearly everyday by either their talking, shouting around our floor or on a thursday when they used to "hoover" the floor.

They would ram the cleaner up against your door so it would wake you up! and they didnt even clean properly! We always had to clean the place again!
i worked at the open day last week, and it is now policy that if you have your own bathroom you have to be responsible for it whereas the cleaners will clean shared bathrooms as its a communal area. - i wouldn't want anyone trapsing through my room at 9am anyway!
Reply 79
Stephaniieee24
Your cleaners came into your room? We got told they wasnt allowed. I was in preseli and our cleaners were terrible! Always complaining about "fire hazards" and state of kitchens when i had seen some in a worse state than ours and our floor was like the meeting place for all preseli cleaners to have a cup of tea in their cupboard which was opp my door. I used to get woken up nearly everyday by either their talking, shouting around our floor or on a thursday when they used to "hoover" the floor.

They would ram the cleaner up against your door so it would wake you up! and they didnt even clean properly! We always had to clean the place again!


I can't speak for the Preseli en suite rooms but in the new buildings the cleaners had to do our bathrooms, there wasn't a choice in the matter, after several run ins with my cleaner i told the accommodation office i wanted to do my own bathroom but was told the cleaner had to come in because (among other reasons) it was a way for someone to check that you were still alive and not growing weed in your room. For the safety aspect i would haver thought it was a blanket policy even if it meant cleaners just opening the door and emptying the bin in the non en suite rooms.

All this being said they may well have changed the policy since i was there. On the cleaning day each week the cleaners would do communal areas first before doing en suite bathrooms, often those who were up first thing or out at lectures would make it known so their rooms could be done first before the cleaner had to disturb those wanting a lie in.

I guess if they have changed the policy it's probably because of budget cuts meaning they no longer have to employ as many cleaners because only communal areas are looked after.

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