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TSR Wiki > University > Choosing a University > University Guides > Durham University > Queen's Campus, Stockton

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Contents 1 Accommodation 1.1 Stephenson College 1.2 John Snow College 2 Campus Facilities 2.1 The Waterside Bar 2.2 Other Facilities 3 Sport 4 Local Area 4.1 Food Shopping 4.2 Town Centre 5 College Catering and Eating out 6 Societies 6.1 ‘Coc-soc’ Mixology Society 6.2 Alternative Music Society 6.3 Medics Society 6.4 International Students Society 6.5 Chocolate Tasting Society 6.6 Debating Society 6.7 Afro-Caribbean Society 7 What to do at night! 7.1 Monday 7.2 Friday 7.3 Others 8 Transport Links to other places 9 Living out (costs + locations)

Accommodation

In the first year you will either choose to live in John Snow or George Stephenson college. Not getting accommodation in halls for your first year is very rare and normally down to forms etc not being returned on time. Basically if you get all of your accommodation applications in by the deadlines, you are pretty much guaranteed a place in your chosen college. I currently live in Stephenson college, so will start with Stevo.

Stephenson College

Stephenson is a complex consisting of 7 attached blocks each consisting of 6 self catering flats. It also has a laundry, computer room and ‘working room’. It is about three minutes walk away from labs, lectures and college dining in the Holliday building and 1 minute walk away from the Ebsworth building (library, IT facilities, lectures and labs) It is arranged in a roughly triangular shape with plenty of car parking and some portakabins in the middle.

The "Heighington" common room has Sky TV and some comfy sofas. Generally a nice place to hang out.

In the ‘Kabins’ theres some sofas, widescreen TV with cable (normally packed during ER/desperate housewives/Rugby matches!), meeting room (used for all kinds of societies such as chocolate tasting soc!) and the Stephenson shop (which sells essentials as well as chocolate, sweets and in the summer we hope ice-cream!).

The flats are arranged into 6/7 ensuite rooms sharing one kitchen with 2 cookers, 2 fridges, 2 sinks, 1 big freezer, microwave, lots of cupboards, big kitchen table, 6 chairs and big kitchen cupboard housing Henry the hoover, ironing board etc.

John Snow College

John Snow college is the slightly older college, about 10mins walk away from campus, but closer to the pub, Rocket Union (slightly!) and Bells convenience store. It also has a very nice gym (of which both Stevo and Snow college people can join). Other than that…from the three or so times ive actually been in the accommodation bit…the rooms are practically the same as Stevo, kitchens are a bit smaller but it seemed fine. Snow has 2 TV rooms as well if that floats your boat.

Campus Facilities

The Waterside Bar

The campus cafeteria during the day becomes the bar at night. The room is really stylish having benefited from a £350k renovation over Christmas 07. Drinks are cheap and the venue comfortable. This would become your regular.

Other Facilities

I've already pretty much covered some of the facilities on campus in the Stephenson review bit. Other than that we have a purpose built Astroturf which hosts hockey, netball, football practise as well as other sports and the weekly five a side football tournament between the blocks in Stephenson.

There is a campus DSU shop which is open every weekday and sells stash (Durham Uni + college branded stuff - pencils…crosstitch kits (no I kid you not), ties, mugs, the very popular hoodies and T-shirts and lots more) toiletries, stationary, newspapers and magazines.

The Waterside café – open every weekday for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything inbetween (very useful for a packet of Rolos/cuppa in lecture/lab breaks). College dining also takes place here – which I will detail later.

Sport

Queens campus has…

Mens football Womens Football Netball Basketball Badminton Table Tennis Rowing Swimming Running Hockey Streetdancing (sport???)

Its also a good area for cycling with tons of bike paths in the local area along the river to Middlesbrough and in the other direction towards Durham (if you are feeling really energetic!). You can also join any of the university teams/clubs (basically anything you can imagine…I have friends who do squash, lacrosse, equestrian, water polo, clay pigeon shooting, fencing etc and they don’t find that going up to Durham for practise/training is much of a problem.)

Ill elaborate on the rowing a bit. If you fancy it, you can start rowing from scratch at uni, no prior experience necessary. The campus is right next to the river Tees, which is a lovely deep, wide, straight river perfect for rowing and watersports. There is also dragon boat racing club, which to be honest I have no idea about other than they look very amusing when out on the water. There is also a whitewater rapids course about a ten minute walk away across the Tees Barrage where they do whitewater rafting and kayaking. I did whitewater rafting there with a few friends last week for fun and it was so funny albeit very cold.

Local Area

Food Shopping

For food shopping, you can either be extremely lazy and go to the local Bells convenience store (mini Sainsburys)...which is about a ten second walk away from Snow halls and a ten minute walk from Stephenson or go to ASDA or Morrisons (in Teeside retail park). There is also Iceland, LIDL, Netto etc in Stockton itself.

Town Centre

The retail park is about 15 minutes away from campus and has:- TGI Fridays, Hollywood Bowl, Showcase cinema, Frankie and Bennys, TKmaxx, KFC, Morrisons, McDonalds, Next, Staples...er…Toys R Us…and some more that I can’t remember! Stockton town centre (15 minute walk away from Stephenson and 10 from Snow) has most shops really…HMV, H&M, Woolworths, Debenhams, Argos, Wilkinsons…really no point in listing them all…basically theres everything that you need.

Starting from the left of the retail horseshoe and working clockwise, Teesside (retail) Park consists of:

JD Sports, Boots, Maplin, Brantano Footwear, Birthdays, Carphone Warehouse, WHSmith, Next, Outfit (one shop that houses Burton, Topman, Toipshop and Warehouse (If I do recall correctly), Homebase, Mothercare, Instore, Starbucks/Borders, Argos, Going Places, JJB Sports, a smallish electrical company, PC World, TK Maxx, and Currys. Outside the horseshoe is Morrisons on the left, and Toys R Us and McDonalds on the right. Behind Toys R Us is Pets At Home and the Morrisons petrol station. Opposite the horseshoe there is Comet and Staples, aswell as TGI Fridays, KFC, Frankie and Benny's and Springs Leisure Club.

Right next to this (over a short bridge which goes over the Old River Tees*) is the leisure side of the park, which houses, in order, Burger King, Hollywood Bowl, Pizza Hut, Showcase Cinemas, Kansas Bar and Grill, a casino I've forgotten the name of, and Gala Bingo.

• in the olden days the river was too bendy for all the ships to sail down efficiently, so they cut a massive bend out of it and diverted it. The bit they cut off is now just a trickle.

College Catering and Eating out

All live in members of Snow or Stephenson get two college meals per week as part of their accommodation costs. These are held in the Waterside room and are of varying quality…it is nice to have an evening meal cooked for you on the two occasions and sit down and eat with lots of friends, but as I said the food can be a bit hit and miss. The puddings are nearly always nice though!

Other than that…just a little bit about eating out in Stockton. There is this AMAZING Chinese restaurant called Peking Garden, where you go in, sit down and then order as much food as you want for about £8 per person. And then you just keep ordering it until you are full. The Stephenson male rowing team did once reportedly stay there for 5 hours after coming back from a competition. Theres also loads of nice student-budget friendly restaurants and bars. Also…there is this very odd ‘delicacy’ called a parmesan…which I won’t give too much away about…normally eaten when someone is extremely drunk, kinda the Stockton version of a kebab but worse…

Societies

Most people join the societies at the Freshers Fair in Freshers week, though its easy to join any of the below at a later date.

The most popular societies:

‘Coc-soc’ Mixology Society

£5 for membership, then £2 per meeting (or £3.50 a meeting for non-members) where we make 3 different cocktails across the night and is a great chance to sit about drinking and meet new people. It also gets bonus points for having an innuendo as a nickname.

Would fully recommend the cocktail society, as I’m a frequent attendee. In fact I think ive actually attended more Coc-Soc meetings than Accounting Lectures on my course!

Alternative Music Society

Which is for fans of ‘alternative’ bands and meets at the rocket. They also organise trips to see bands in the local area, and also run trips for larger bands, such as in term1 there was a trip to see Feeder in Doncaster.

Medics Society

For Medics only, organise balls for the Medic students etc

International Students Society

Organise balls mainly for international students but other students are free to join in as well. They also organise trips, like in term 1 a great trip to Edinburgh for the day.

Chocolate Tasting Society

Meets in the Stephenson Kabins.

Debating Society

The basic format seems to be that the organisers pick a topic for each meeting ‘debate’ and then members join in a discussion at the meeting. Topics seem to be medical and ethical ones.

Afro-Caribbean Society

Aimed mainly at Afro-Caribbean’s, but anyone an join. Though again I don’t know much about this society. Except that they have organised a couple of great nights at Moby Grape, such as the “pimps and ho’s night” mentioned further up.

What to do at night!

Monday

'Che bar' is the place to be. A cuban themed bar in the centre of stockton (within walking distance from both stevo and snow halls). Entry is £3 and well worth it. All drinks £1.50. Music played is a bit of everything.

Friday

Planet Of Sound: held in the DSU in Durham: I haven’t actually been to this night! But everyone says its great, and a lot from Queens Campus go. There is a service bus back at 2am from Durham, and its got so popular that this is now a double-decker bus. There are also plans in the pipeline for next year to run coaches to and from Stockton for this night…but it will have to wait and see if this comes to fruition. This night is a chance for the entire university to go to, and is also a great chance to meet up with friends who have gone to the Durham City campus.

Also ‘Zanizibar’ in Stockton, which is incredibly chav!! But hilarious. Looks like a bingo hall inside, has drinks for a £ (including bottles of Newcastle Brown, for a £!!) and karaoke. Not great for a regular visit, but If you fancy getting wasted and sitting watching chav-girls trying to dance ‘sexily’ and also 40year old fake-tanned slappers trying to look young…it’s the place for you! So in summary, only good if in the mood and with a large group of friends.

Others

There are also numerous clubs and pubs in Stockton and also Middlesbrough…the ones ive listed are merely the student nights that they run in conjunction with the university. So it is only the “tip of the iceberg”. There is something for everyone, from quiet pubs, to noisy bars.

There are also several “one off” nights and events on campus, such as the Stephenson JCR arranged a bar crawl in Newcastle and then another in Leeds.

There are also some other one off events, such as the “Afro-Caribbean society” arranged a very popular “pimps and ho’s” night.

Transport Links to other places

Train to Middlesbrough from Thornaby (5mins from halls) is £1.

X1 Bus to Durham runs every half hour. Last bus back at 11:30 Sat to Thur, 2am on Fri.

Direct train to Newcastle £6 (Return).

Living out (costs + locations)