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Founders Hall

From someone currently at Royal Holloway, here's a nice, honest review for you if you're looking at RHUL for next year! I'm currently a First Year living in Founders Hall.

There is no doubt about it - Royal Holloway is a stunning place. Founders Building is absolutely beautiful (from the outside - more on that later!), Founders wood is gorgeous, especially at the moment in the Spring, there are some impressive-looking new buildings being built, and the Uni has an excellent academic rating (some recent suggestions of it dropping to 25th place in league tables are, apparently, an error)!

COME TO ROYAL HOLLOWAY - IT'S AMAZING (As long as you're not a HUGE fan of clubbing - see other threads!)

Now for the bad stuff...
Avoid Founders Hall like the plague (or you may well catch the plague from Founders!) My reasons for saying this are numerous:

- Most meals will be from the dining hall, as Founders is a catered hall. However, pantries are provided (include a kettle, microwave, toaster, fridge and sink) for preparing snacks etc. These pantries are, quite frankly, disgusting, unsanitary and dangerous. They are cleaned Monday - Friday, which means that after they are cleaned on Friday at 10am, they are not cleaned again until Monday at 10am. As you can imagine, some students do not seem capable of cleaning up after themselves (not RHUL's fault) but no disciplinary action is taken on these people, and no changes to the cleaning regime have occurred (this IS RHULs fault!) If the HSE came in and checked the pantries, I'm 100% sure RHUL would have a major health issue on their hands. I contracted salmonella last term. Although I can't prove it, I have suspicions this was caused by the lack of sanitary conditions in the pantry. There is not even the option to prepare snacks in your rooms, as no personal kitchen equipment is allowed (mini-fridges, kettles etc) in rooms.

- Some equipment in the pantries is unsafe - our kettle on 2nd Floor East, for example, is broken. Exposed wiring + water....a good idea?

- There are (large) insects of some description living in the 3rd Floor East pantry. Many people have said they look like cockroaches, although this hasn't been confirmed.

- My floor was without hot water for 6 days at the beginning of this term, and have not had water for a total of around 2 and a half weeks so far this academic year. When one student complained about this issue, she was told "well, it's an old building")

- If you go down to the First Floor, where the offices are located, the bathrooms and pantries are newly refurbished. RHUL seems to care more about its staff than the students, without whom the university would not exist.

- Noise disturbances at night are not dealt with properly by security. It has taken them 20 minutes to respond to call outs in the past. One time when I went to the security desk in reception to make a complaint about noise, the security man mumbled "bl**dy hell, I've only just sat down" as he got up from his desk. They then fail to log noise disturbance issues (they are supposed to pass on details of all noise disturbances to the Wardens so that troublesome students can be dealt with). I called Security out countless times last term about the person in the room next door (who I am convinced is nocturnal and insists on playing his music on full volume at 4am) and not once were my complaints passed to the wardens.

- Some rooms are so hot it's uncomfortable to work and sleep in them, as pipes run through student rooms and some radiators are non-adjustable. My friend now either has to work with a fan on, or comes into my room to work because his room is so hot. He has complained and has been told "there's nothing we can do about it". This is in January. What's it going to be like in his room come summer?

- There is never any soap provided in the toilets. I thought this may be the case, and so brought my own with me, but this isn't exactly promoting hygiene, especially when the toilets are shared between approximately 50 students.

- Sanitary bins on the girls' floor were not emptied between October and January. When they were overflowing, one girl went to complain. After being passed to 4 different offices, she was finally told that if the bins were overflowing, she should take the lid off and press the contents down with her hands.

I would suggest that Founders is a beautiful building (I believe it is Grade 1 Listed) and therefore should be treated with respect and maintained to the highest possible standard. If it is no longer fit for use as student accommodation, it should be converted entirely into office/admin space and other halls should be built to replace it. Excuses like "it's an old building" are simply not acceptable when you are paying upwards of £1000 per terms to live here.

With Founders, even the phrase "you get what you pay for" does not suffice. Yes, Founders is the cheapest hall on campus, but this does not mean they can treat the students living here like they deserve to live in squalor.

Summary: Avoid Founders Hall like the plague, apart from that RHUL is brilliant!

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Reply 1

~.~ Millie ~.~

heres a question about accomodation in general - if RHUL is ur insurance, what are the chances of getting any sort of accomodation at all - on campus

Reply 2

Sarah Sheep

~.~ Millie

heres a question about accomodation in general - if RHUL is ur insurance, what are the chances of getting any sort of accomodation at all - on campus

I would say little to no chance.

Reply 3

The Lyceum

Hm what about if you're a late applicant? As in via EXTRA?

Reply 4

Sarah Sheep

Not even first years putting RHUL as their firm are guaranteed it, so I would say UCAS extra applicants not have much chance either.

Reply 5

The Lyceum

Ah well. Founders hall popular then?

Reply 6

Sarah Sheep

I read that Founders is the most over subscribed hall, so I would say it is quite popular!

Reply 7

The Lyceum

Sarah Sheep

I read that Founders is the most over subscribed hall, so I would say it is quite popular!

Ah well, it looked nice and it was uber close to the library. Still, no harm in trying, right?

Are there any items one can absolutely not bring to RHUL?

Reply 8

Sarah Sheep

Drugs and guns.

Or if you mean into rooms, the only thing I can remember is mini fridges. Although the key is to make sure anything like that is hidden when your room gets inspected...

Reply 9

tomematthews

Not sure if this thread is still active....
Basically just don't bring anything into Founders rooms (not sure about others) which constitutes personal cooking equipment. Things like Toasters, kettles, mini-fridges, sandwich-toasters etc will be confiscated by staff if they're found in your room.
On the other hand.....don't let them see them and you're fine :wink:

(Unless you trip the electrics or set off the uber-sensitive fire alarms!)

Reply 10

bansheeee*

call me a loser ,but i think i saw that review(above) on founders ,exactly the same,on a different website before!

Reply 11

PureAppleJuice

Dunno, so far this year I haven't had too many problems but i'll have to agree about the insects really. Yesterday I saw some cockroach looking things around the 2nd floor east pantry and currently the bins are overflowing with garbage. I eat at a friend's in runnymede so quite frankly have had the luck of avoiding founder's food all year round!

Lack of hot water at the beginning of terms is a major problem i'll agree, went to the showers and lo and behold, had to have a freezing shower, lovely.

Otherwise though I don't think Founder's is that bad and i'd much rather be here than in any of the others and pay a lot more. I highly suggest you find a friend who you can cook with in another hall to avoid the absolutely awful food in Founder's.

Reply 12

PureAppleJuice

Ok, sorry for a double post but here's a few pictures (as requested mainly by westofirelandgirl19)

Apologies for the poor camera work, if anyone wants any more feel free to ask...

Reply 13

bansheeee*

thanks..it doesn't look that bad..it reminds me of a hostel! i'm just worried i'll have to go without the neccesary things such as washing and eating for the first few weeks,yikes.

Reply 14

Hana_1987

Use the showers on the 5th floor-they're slightly nicer and don't smell of mould like the other ones do!!

Reply 15

PureAppleJuice

Yeah you can sneak to the fifth floor, they've got power showers, they're worth using. And if you go down a couple of floors you can use the staff toilets which are pretty immaculate actually. That just leaves the food, so befriend someone who's got a good kitchen and share cooking with them!

Reply 16

apotoftea

Any reviews of the new halls? or Runnymede?

Reply 17

bansheeee*

Are there many rooms with a washhandbasin?? is the Dinning hall and cafeteria the same thing? Is there any weekly event on at RHUL ? Like roehampton have the 'Bop' every friday

Reply 18

PureAppleJuice

To apotoftea, the new halls are generally pretty damn good. They are very expensive for what they are though. I'd pick Gowar and Wedderburn over Williamson, Tuke & Butler, they have a nicer location.

Runnymede is fine really, they had a boiler breakage a while ago with so no hot water but they all have ensuite etc.

I think most, if not all the girls rooms have washbasins.

I suppose the dining hall and cafeteria is the same place? There's a place beneath the dining hall called Crosslands which is also a cafeteria where you can buy food.

Weekly events on? Not really sure what you mean by that but there's usually something on Monday's, Wednesday's & Friday's at the SU. If not then there's usually something going on at Medicine or the local pubs. A night out is what you make it...

Reply 19

Sarah Sheep

PureAppleJuice

There's a place beneath the dining hall called Crosslands which is also a cafeteria where you can buy food.

Crosslands would be a bar. :wink:

They do hot food at lunch time then a variety of bar snacks in the evening.

As well as Founders Dining Room there is also The Hub that is more like a cafeteria in my opinion.