Crime

why dont they want u to have a laptop? as long as u make sure your belongings are insured there should be no problem. as far as i know when i looked round the accommodation it all looked secure, i think there are safety deposit boxes somewhere if youre that worried. oh and in most if not all accomm blocks u needed a code to open the door, so its not like anyone could just walk in.

Reply 2

Sam_B

OP

14

skagirl

why dont they want u to have a laptop? as long as u make sure your belongings are insured there should be no problem. as far as i know when i looked round the accommodation it all looked secure, i think there are safety deposit boxes somewhere if youre that worried. oh and in most if not all accomm blocks u needed a code to open the door, so its not like anyone could just walk in.

thats good news!

i like ur sig by the way :biggrin:

I have lived in Souhampton for two years and I will never never come back. The crime is rampant, so much so that the accomodation/university people put out messages telling you not to go out alone. On my floor, there are 6 people. Five of us have been attacked, had our belongings stolen or been approached for sex on the common. They don't give you a proper answer about the crime problem because they know it is very serious. I have been interviewed by police on two occasions after witnessing local kids gain entry to our building to steal and bash students in the bar. The problem is that there is a massive social problem brought about by outsiders who can afford education and local southampton teens who just chav about looking for what they can steal. I was attacked by a group of 14 or 15 year old boys and girls who had screw drivers and small knives and wanted my shopping bag.

The course I came here to study is rated one of the best in Britain but it doesnt make up for the lack of freedom and the amount of petty crime I have witnessed or heard about. I will prob be awarded a full scholarship for Phd which I wont accept. I will never EVER come back to this dump again. Plus there is no shopping, it is expensive as hell to take the train to London and no one ever comes to visit because there is nothing to do. If you get accepted at another good university go there instead. I turned down UCL to go to Soton and that was a BIG mistake!!

BTW, Southampton is also the poor chav capital of England and they are everywhere :frown:

Reply 5

lauren23

2

and that makes us feel a lot better!!

Reply 6

Sorry...I don't want to blow the crime out of proportion but it is a serious issue to consider. If you are ok with walking around in groups and avoiding parts of the town you'll be fine. I have gone to different universities and lived in different towns and personally I can only accept personal limitations if the place is worth it. There is just a bad vibe in the town and placing the bulk of university accomodation right next door to the flowers estate prob wasnt the smartest idea. Security guards in the local co-op...please! To be fair, a lot of the first years do have a really fun time but you have to be prepared to take extra care when you go out and be a little more vigilant. As I said before, the university itself is great so it is a real shame that the town is crime ridden and has NO shopping! With regards to a laptop, if you are off the ground floor and you dont leave it unattended when you go out, you should be fine.

What a lot of *******s, the crime isn't any worse than anywhere else in the country. Just be sensible and look after your stuff, and you'll be fine!

Reply 9

I'm sorry but statistically, Southampton has a massive crime problem. I think students should be aware of that when they are weighing the options of which university to attend.

Reply 10

Massive crime problem? Erm..i wouldn't go that far.

There have been a couple of hall break ins since October, but one over the vacation and another when some students were followed back to halls by some local scallies and then there was an incident in the bar. Southampton uni are very upfront about these things and have good safety advice.

You have a safety briefing from a police officer in your intro lecture with your department, you can get safety stuff in freshers week like personal alarms and timeclocks.

The rooms and halls are generally secure with keypad entry and then a flat door lock and your own room lock. All windows are lockable and you should by and large keep them locked. Ground floor rooms are obviously more liable to break ins.

There are always security staff with dogs around our halls (Hartley/South Hill/Chamberlain) and on Campus. Halls are generally well lit and there is 24hr reception and if in doubt dial 999.

Get a kensington lock for your laptop, and keep curtains shut if you are going away for the weekend and leaving your laptop there. Kensington locks are about £25 and can be brought from Dabs.com and similar places.

If you are suggesting the town has a massive crime problem, again I'd say you are over exaggerating. Crime is no more of a problem than in most large cities. Southampton in my view has a large number of police officers on the beat. (and I come from Croydon..). I think this is a good thing and there are community support officers too and CCTV in most places. I've never seen any trouble in town, apart from Pompee v Soton football and that was just football fans being pissed off they lost and was well controlled by the police.

I'd love to see the stats that back up your statement that we have a "massive crime problem".

Reply 11

cactus77

I have lived in Souhampton for two years and I will never never come back. The crime is rampant, so much so that the accomodation/university people put out messages telling you not to go out alone. On my floor, there are 6 people. Five of us have been attacked, had our belongings stolen or been approached for sex on the common. They don't give you a proper answer about the crime problem because they know it is very serious. I have been interviewed by police on two occasions after witnessing local kids gain entry to our building to steal and bash students in the bar. The problem is that there is a massive social problem brought about by outsiders who can afford education and local southampton teens who just chav about looking for what they can steal. I was attacked by a group of 14 or 15 year old boys and girls who had screw drivers and small knives and wanted my shopping bag.

The course I came here to study is rated one of the best in Britain but it doesnt make up for the lack of freedom and the amount of petty crime I have witnessed or heard about. I will prob be awarded a full scholarship for Phd which I wont accept. I will never EVER come back to this dump again. Plus there is no shopping, it is expensive as hell to take the train to London and no one ever comes to visit because there is nothing to do. If you get accepted at another good university go there instead. I turned down UCL to go to Soton and that was a BIG mistake!!

BTW, Southampton is also the poor chav capital of England and they are everywhere :frown:

Wow you have a big vendetta against Southampton don't you?!! I think your experience is especially bad.

No shopping? *******s..West Quay is 6th biggest retail centre in the Uk or something and theres Bargate centre and Marlands and the highstreet and Gunwharf Quays only a little way on the train to Pompee.

It's not expensive compared to London it's just southern prices, and there are loads of things to do! Loads of parks, 2 cinemas, the quayside, a fair range of pubs and nightlife.

Reply 12

Just thought i'd add my two pence. Southampton has crime, every city, town, village, hamble etc does. Does it have more crime than other cities of a similar size? I don't know but i doubt it. If you are sensible and take adequate care when you out and about i.e. walk around in groups late at night, don't flash your phone or expensive items (ipod) around you should be fine. Similarly in halls if you have valueable thing then insure your room, lock up your bike, keep curtains and windows closed (which i have to do a lot as i'm on the ground floor). As for the fact that you turned down UCL to come here? I think you'd find a hell of a lot more crime in central london than in southampton. UCL is 10 mins away from Kings Cross, Kings Cross has a massive drugs/prostitution problem. There are lots of teenagers here who go around in groups, but you'd find that anywhere. Its unfortunate you've been a victim of crime, its not a nice thing to happen to anyone, but making unsubstantiated comments such as "massive" isn't helpful to people who are going to come here. Do you have stats as sophdoph said to back up exactly what massive means? Massive compared to where?

As for shopping i think thats rubbish. I'm from London and the main thing that annoys me about shopping in Southampton is that the shops aren't open long enough. There are more than enough shops to get everything you should need. West Quay, Marlands, Bargate, East St, as well as the shops surrounding the area have pretty much everything you'd need unless you're looking for specialist things. Me and a friend went to Portsmouth for the day to Gunwharf Quay, a retail outlet village and that was great fun. It only took about an hour and we'd have to travel much further than that had we been in London. Price of living is on par with living in the south. If you wanted cheap, i can tell you for nothing that you wouldn't have got that at UCL.

The halls have good security from what i've seen. They have patrols every day with guard dogs, and like sophdoph said the reception is open 24hrs a day (which i had the fortune of finding out when i had to call an ambulance at 5 am a few days ago). Students are always a target for criminals, as they are likely to have electrical items and cash on them. However i haven't had any problems since i've been here and i've even walked through St. Marys (red light district apparently!) late at night on various occasions with no problems.

Reply 13

Oh and if getting a train to london is so expensive, then loose some pride and get on megabus like the rest of us! If you book far enough in advance it is £2.50 return. Thats hardly a reasonable argument considering that trains are expensive wherever you go, and southampton is serviced by national express and megabus. My friends have never used that one as an excuse not to come down and see me.

Reply 14

Interesting, i've just compared the borough of Westminster (lots of central london is part of this borough) with the postcode for my halls. http://www.upmystreet.com/inf/sin/det/index.php3?l1=SO18+2NU&l2=SW1

Reply 15

Like Sarky has done..I did a comparison of my hall postcode (Hartley Grove - arguably close to the Flowers Estate), with a UCL halls postcode where a very close friend lives:

http://www.upmystreet.com/inf/sin/det/?l1=SO16+3FX&l2=W1T+5HB

Reply 16

My opinion is just that...MY opinion!! It is based purely on my experiences and those of my friends! I have no doubt that plenty of people love Southampton and first years are happy just to move out of home. I am simply stating that I think Southampton is a miserable dump and that it is an odd location for a university. If you think that security guards in co-op, watching parents verbally/physically abusing their kids in ASDA and avoiding crack heads is ok, then fine. I dont find this pleasant and only tolerate living in such a place if the town has something to offer. I hardly think that Marlands counts as a mall, although £1 stores, cheap jewellry outlets and nasty, tacky clothes shops would definately have a big market. It says something about England that West Key even rates as a shopping destination, although in this town I guess it is. I have lived in seven different countries and travelled extensively and I have come to the conclusion that Southampton is only interesting for its novelty value. The local accent is nasty, the people are revolting and the town is a working class hole meant for dock workers, child abusing mothers and poor chav. You can intellectualise about it and justify living here all you want but in the end it is what it is....

Reply 17

If you are gonna use the local accent as fuel for a vendetta against a city then you have big problems my friend. It is your own opinion, but my opinion is very different from yours.

I was glad to move out of home yes, but I would never have moved to somewhere I didn't want to be and I enjoy Southampton "warts and all". Nowhere is perfect. I'd prefer to be in Southampton than London - less expensive, less dirty, by the coast, less manic lifestyle. The public transport (mainly Uni Link buses) is much better, people are generally much more friendly too than in many big cities in the UK.

Why is it a miserable dump? Isn't the essence of being a student making the most of things? Things are only miserable if you let them be, it's fairly easy to ignore little issues like some chavvy kids hanging around a shopping centre.

Why is it in an odd location? I agree it's neither a city or a campus university which may be considered slightly strange, but I think it has the best of both worlds. You don't feel enclosed on a campus like Bath or somewhere, but you have a sense of place rather being sprawled over a city like Sheffield or the London Universities.

OK Marlands has some crap shops, but it also has The Entertainer, Disney Store, Hawkins (quality games and stuff..) and lots of fun little places like that.

I have never seen security in the co-op, and see it all the time in Surrey where I live, places such as Redhill etc. Most ASDA's will have some mums getting stroppy with their kids..the things you are saying about Southampton apply to virtually every town and city in the UK and abroad.

Fair enough you may be well travelled and slightly bitter about the UK shopping centres, but I fail to see why Southampton just has novelty value.

None of us, PQ, Sarky or I are trying to say Southampton is the best place ever. We just like it, it's friendly, green, and has loads to offer if you are willing to open your mind.

Reply 18

cactus77

My opinion is just that...MY opinion!! It is based purely on my experiences and those of my friends! I have no doubt that plenty of people love Southampton and first years are happy just to move out of home. I am simply stating that I think Southampton is a miserable dump and that it is an odd location for a university. If you think that security guards in co-op, watching parents verbally/physically abusing their kids in ASDA and avoiding crack heads is ok, then fine. I dont find this pleasant and only tolerate living in such a place if the town has something to offer. I hardly think that Marlands counts as a mall, although £1 stores, cheap jewellry outlets and nasty, tacky clothes shops would definately have a big market. It says something about England that West Key even rates as a shopping destination, although in this town I guess it is. I have lived in seven different countries and travelled extensively and I have come to the conclusion that Southampton is only interesting for its novelty value. The local accent is nasty, the people are revolting and the town is a working class hole meant for dock workers, child abusing mothers and poor chav. You can intellectualise about it and justify living here all you want but in the end it is what it is....

You didn't address some points i made which i thought highlighted the flaws in your argument.

1. London (which you turned down) has a higher crime rate, more expense, more stroppy children etc and the accent is the same.

2. There are other (cheaper) ways of getting in London other than the train

3. There are other places to go shopping (what exactly are you looking for in terms of shops because every medium sized city in the UK will pretty much be the same).

4. Southampton has never pretended to be a cultural centre. It sounds like the things that bother you about Southampton aren't limited to there. Other cities like Nottingham have good universities and good shops but with a much higher crime rate.

6. Do you not think you would avoiding crack heads in any other urbanised place in the UK? I can pretty much guarantee that the UCL area has its fair share.

7. Lastly i don't have to justify living here. I made my choice based on what i knew of similar cities, the course and the university. I'm happy in Southampton and being a first year has nothing to do with it. (I had practically moved out whilst i was doing A levels anyway). Southampton probably won't match up to your seven countries that you've been to, but i don't think it was ever trying to. If you are that unhappy then maybe you should think about transferring? You still haven't substantiated your claim that Southampton has a "massive" crime problem either.

Reply 19