The Student Room Group
Students at Cornwall campus, University of Exeter
University of Exeter
Exeter

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Reply 20
Angelil
Not being able to cook when you arrive is no problem - lots of people can't and you soon learn. It's also much cheaper to cook your own food than it is to go catered (I've done the maths on this site somewhere, you might be able to find it if you do a search).

Having effectively been in catered accommodation as a postgraduate, I can see very very few advantages. It's nice to eat with all your friends and know people will be there, and it's nice to not make an effort. However, that's as far as it goes. The food, while edible, is extremely expensive for what it is and so for this term I've actually changed my catering plan so I don't eat in hall as the waste of money is just incredible. (Even taking into account the money spent per meal, in the majority of cases you also don't get back food you don't eat if you are ill/go out with friends/go home for the weekend/want a lie-in/aren't hungry at the allotted meal time.) It can also be extremely antisocial outside of meals - I don't even know the names of the people on my corridor. However, I think a lot of people choose to go catered as it takes the pressure off.

Self-catered accommodation can often be of a lesser quality at Exeter but there's still a range to choose from. People claim it is less sociable than catered halls but I disagree. It does mean you have to throw yourself into the total independence of cooking for yourself but imo the sooner you get used to it the better - how will it help you to delay learning to cook by an extra year? It is also far better value for money (when you take the St Germans rooms, which at £95 a pop are just as nice as the Penny C rooms with ensuite etc, there is no way on earth that you spend the £50 difference between the two rooms on food and laundry in a single week).


Just playing devil's advocate, for me, leaving home for the first time and being independant for the first time was scary enough, so it helped me that for the first year I didn't have to worry about cooking. If you feel that you want to become totally independant in your first year go for it, but for me it was one less thing to worry about. I'm now in a house and coping with it fine, I don't think it's made a huge difference that I had to learn it a year later.
Students at Cornwall campus, University of Exeter
University of Exeter
Exeter
Reply 21
I'd rather go independent all the way :smile: Than worry about learning to cook later... I've been wanting to do that for so long and Uni will be the perfect opportunity :smile:
Doesn't really seem so to me...but I'm a southerner anyway so...
Reply 23
Angelil
No - there's no room and they use a hideous amount of water so they're very expensive to run.


I just found out that they're a lot more economical than washing up stuff by hand.
Eco dishwashers recycle the water and doesn't use as much energy to heat the water up as it is the pressure that does the most amount of cleaning.
Reply 24
Even in uni houses you won't find "eco dishwashers", they'll just be normal ones. And that still doesn't change the fact that the uni doesn't provide them :p:

I really doubt that dishwashers use less water than handwashing. Our water bill shot up when we started using the dishwasher in my house in my second year, so we stopped using it.

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