The Student Room Logo
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>
This thread is closed

The Cambridge Chat Thread

Scroll to see replies

Just come back with a load of lovely warm laundry.
jcb914
Emma does have the benefit of the laundry service but, from what I have seen, their general accommodation quality leaves a lot to be desired for. I believe there are very few en-suites and the 4 or 5 rooms I have seen haven't been that great......but then maybe I've only seen a small cross-section....


Our few en-suites are for third years, but to be honest, I've never really counted that as such a bad thing... I mean, I share a bathroom with four other people at home, so it baffles me when people get upset about sharing one in halls... I would say our standard of accommodation is great - I pay £69.50 a week for a room as big as the one I share with my sister at home, with loads of storage space, a sink that is hidden neatly inside a cupboard, a big window with lots of light and a comfy window seat, desk, bed, shelves, mini fridge, a couple of chairs and internet included. I don't really see what more you could want from a room - I'm not one for palaces! I suppose it depends on what you're comparing it to, but I've never been to a room in another college and wished that I lived there instead...

Ukey - we have something called a Kitchen Fixed Charge, which is £144 a year going specifically towards the upkeep of the hall kitchens and the subsides of our hall food, which is really quite cheap too. College are very open about where our money's going, and if it was going towards the laundry service we'd know about it :smile:
Reply 3542
Avatar for jcb914
jcb914
11
Zoedotdot
Our few en-suites are for third years, but to be honest, I've never really counted that as such a bad thing... I mean, I share a bathroom with four other people at home, so it baffles me when people get upset about sharing one in halls... I would say our standard of accommodation is great - I pay £69.50 a week for a room as big as the one I share with my sister at home, with loads of storage space, a sink that is hidden neatly inside a cupboard, a big window with lots of light and a comfy window seat, desk, bed, shelves, mini fridge, a couple of chairs and internet included. I don't really see what more you could want from a room - I'm not one for palaces! I suppose it depends on what you're comparing it to, but I've never been to a room in another college and wished that I lived there instead...

Ha, maybe I just have an uncharacteristic bad impression. A friend of mine had a room overlooking the bus station and it was awful - small, tacky, noisy and the shared bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. The few other Emma rooms I've seen haven't be great, either. But then I guess all colleges have their fair share of nasty rooms so it's unfair for me to judge Emma on that.

As for the lack of en-suites, it's a very big deal for me. I like my own bathroom, but again, I get that some people don't mind sharing. That's why it's great there are so many colleges for people to choose from :smile:
Reply 3543
Avatar for Slumpy
Slumpy
16
TheUnbeliever
Try £1.40 and 20p for 6 minutes. I think I shall be buying (another) clothes drier.


£1.65 a wash, although 20p gives us 10 minutes of drying(actually, I have a free washing machine in my house this year:biggrin:)
azhao
I saw you on Wednesday, you were walking South along Trumpington on the East side of the road.


I believe I was walking that way on Wednesday, yes :smile: A friend of mine came over for superhall and I was walking to the station to meet him.

scarlet ibis
Sunday 1pm: Tea and cake in the Library cafe for my birthday if anyone wants to come. I've added some people to the group on FB but I don't have everyone on FB. Also, it says 1-4 but I don't expect everyone to stay all that time!

http://www.facebook.com/events.php#/event.php?eid=157909543395&index=1


I'll try to be there for a bit, but it won't be for long :o:

Zoedotdot

Ukey - we have something called a Kitchen Fixed Charge, which is £144 a year going specifically towards the upkeep of the hall kitchens and the subsides of our hall food, which is really quite cheap too. College are very open about where our money's going, and if it was going towards the laundry service we'd know about it :smile:


So you have no weird charges that you're not altogether sure where they're from? I'm impressed :p: Mind you, after a bit of thought I did work out where all of mine came from last year.
ukebert

I'll try to be there for a bit, but it won't be for long

That's fine. It would be nice to see you properly (ie not just on the door of Cellars!) even if its not for long!
I am doing 'work' by making pretty patterns here:

http://www.sunsite.ubc.ca/LivingMathematics/V001N01/UBCExamples/Flow/flow.html

:o:
Reply 3547
Avatar for smilepea
smilepea
I want to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
jcb914
Ha, maybe I just have an uncharacteristic bad impression. A friend of mine had a room overlooking the bus station and it was awful - small, tacky, noisy and the shared bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. The few other Emma rooms I've seen haven't be great, either. But then I guess all colleges have their fair share of nasty rooms so it's unfair for me to judge Emma on that.


Essentially, I think it comes down to the fact that we don't have very many new/refurbished rooms, and the very few that we have are almost always all taken by third-years due to how the room ballot works. (However, a friend did get very lucky and has one of the new en-suite rooms this year.)
Canned Door
I think I've had my first time management fail in Cambridge. Went to Ceilidh Band :biggrin:, left at the reasonable time of 00:15 :biggrin:, fell asleep, fell asleep again after my 7am alarm, now have an hour to do a translation where I can't even understand source text. Last night was so so good though.

I too had my first time management fail in Cambridge today. I didn't wake up until quarter past 11, therefore missing my 11 o' clock Arabic class. Having missed that, I decided I would lie in just a little bit longer until my German translation class at 12, which I also duly slept through, not waking up again until half 12, and then, to top it all off, I fell asleep again on a bench at the Sigdwick Site and only caught the last 10 or so minutes of a lecture later in the day. :banghead:
This is why you should never stay up chatting until 6 am on a school-day! :sadnod:
Scipio90
Hmm.

If you accept the general principle of library fines, there's no point having them unless they're large enough to be worth avoiding.

alex_hk90
I agree with Scipio and have little sympathy - just return or renew them in time.

I agree with the principle of library fines too; having worked in a library at home for over four years, I too have little sympathy for anyone who doesn't way to pay and hasn't got a legitimate excuse. However, like Craggy mentioned, I was taken aback by the extortionate amount they charge, especially for being only a day overdue and with no reserves/recalls on the items themselves. And the fact that they need to be returned before 10.15am on the day they're due back - where's the sense in that?!

I accepted that I had a fine and paid up without hesitation - doesn't mean I can't moan about it though :p:
Reply 3551
Avatar for Craghyrax
Craghyrax
OP
17
I guess we can conclude that the Geography library is even poorer than SPS and can't afford multiple copies and therefore makes people loan books for shorter periods of time (like the Seeley) and also have to charge more :p:

I just got my first books out of the Philosophy library today :biggrin: A whole week's loan :eek: Luxury :closedeyes:

On the topic of bad managing, just wait until you lot fail to wake up for your alarm and end up waking up 15mins before the end of the supervision you were meant to be in :erm:
jcb914
Ha, maybe I just have an uncharacteristic bad impression. A friend of mine had a room overlooking the bus station and it was awful - small, tacky, noisy and the shared bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. The few other Emma rooms I've seen haven't be great, either. But then I guess all colleges have their fair share of nasty rooms so it's unfair for me to judge Emma on that.
Apart from Parkside, which isn't used for conferences, I haven't seen any nasty rooms at Peterhouse. And even in the case of Parkside (where no undergrad has to live unless they want to - I mean look at ukebert - bottom of the ballot and he's right next door to college :p:) its nasty in the sense that the walls are smudged and they haven't repainted stuff for awhile. Everything works fine, and the houses look really nice on the outside, the rooms are huge and cheap and have sinks in them and they generally have better facilities and good views. And are central.
jcb914

As for the lack of en-suites, it's a very big deal for me. I like my own bathroom, but again, I get that some people don't mind sharing. That's why it's great there are so many colleges for people to choose from :smile:

I would hate to share a bathroom if there were no bedders, but actually I would far rather have my own kitchen than bathroom because I find sharing a kitchen far more disgusting. With the help of a bedder, bathrooms that I've shared in Peterhouse have always been clean. The worst case scenario is running out of toilet paper, but I've luckily never come across anything gross.
Reply 3552
Avatar for mwiko
mwiko
My time management mistake for today: Deciding to have a quick 15min nap before showering and re-attacking eu law...
I was asleep for two hours.
Reply 3553
Avatar for visesh
visesh
17
Phew, that was a loooong week.
My time management fail: thinking I had a supervision at 5:30 when it was actually at 5. Luckily I was 10 minutes early for when I thought it was!
brimstone
I agree with the principle of library fines too; having worked in a library at home for over four years, I too have little sympathy for anyone who doesn't way to pay and hasn't got a legitimate excuse. However, like Craggy mentioned, I was taken aback by the extortionate amount they charge, especially for being only a day overdue and with no reserves/recalls on the items themselves. And the fact that they need to be returned before 10.15am on the day they're due back - where's the sense in that?!

As long as they disclose that fact it's OK.

brimstone
I accepted that I had a fine and paid up without hesitation - doesn't mean I can't moan about it though :p:

Fair enough. :smile:

On time management fails: I have two supervisions worth of work to complete by Monday/Tuesday, both of which I haven't started; however, I just went on a CUHH run, am just about to go to badminton training, am going home to watch football tomorrow, then playing football on Sunday, and attending choir on Monday. This could be interesting. :woo: On the other hand, I have Formals on Tuesday and Wednesday. :biggrin:
Mine wasn't so much time management as general organisation fail:

Waited in the wrong place for my first E&B supervision (outside Zoology instead of Plant Sciences). Realised he wasn't turning up, went to the computing room to re-check the email from him, realised I was in the wrong place, got directions to the right place, couldn't get into the right place, eventually got in half an hour late. Didn't miss much though, so its all good.
My time management fails for the week: I haven't completed a single piece of work yet, I was asleep yesterday afternoon when I was meant to be in my 3pm SPAV class and I showed up at Sidg at 1pm today for an oral class that was meant to happen at 11am, and climbed all the way to the third floor of the RFB and stood outside the door for five minutes before remembering. But I'm quite ill so have an excuse :p:

On the topic of our accommodation - I think our rooms are great value for money, particularly with things like the mini fridges. There are some awful ones - my architect friend last year had a really poky little room with a view of a wall - but I would say the majority are really quite reasonable, particularly for the rent that we pay. When my mum helped me move into my room this year she said that despite it being smaller than last year's it would have been considered a really lovely room in her halls in Liverpool (the posh formal ones!) and they paid a huge amount more there than we pay here so I'm happy. Perhaps I have simple tastes though :smile: My room at home is shared and not really big enough for the two of us (we have bunkbeds) so I love my room because it's my personal space and anywhere in college would be great for me :smile:
Reply 3558
Avatar for azhao
azhao
3
I managed to go through a day without dozing off or reaching for the pro-plus. Yay!
I have general organisation fails rather than those that are specifically time management. E.g. I've forgotten my lab coat & goggles for both the practicals, although for one of them (PoO) I didn't need it anyway, and I could have gone back at the hour's break.

Related discussions

Trending

Latest