Living at Warwick video transcript

Welcome from Sarah Booth

Hello! Good morning everyone, welcome to Warwick! If this is your second session of the day you've probably been welcomed twice already - so welcome again!

I hope you enjoyed our little video there of what your life could possibly be like and all the opportunities that you could have if you were living at Warwick and being part of the University.

My name is Sarah Booth and I work in the student recruitment team here at the University, and a big part of my job is about going into schools and colleges, meeting prospective students - in fact I probably met one or two of you in this room - meeting parents, meeting teachers, and talking about Warwick and what life could be like at Warwick; what the great opportunities here are.

What's it like at Warwick?

One of the most common questions that we get asked – other than does Warwick do Economics? - is what is it actually like to live at Warwick? What is it like to be a student? What is the living experience like and that is what this session is going to cover, yes, we're going to look at the facilities that we have here in the accommodation but actually it's about the whole experience of living at Warwick and being a student here.

And to help me with that I'm going to welcome two students on stage a little bit later; Taylor and Tiana, and Taylor has just moved into his second year and Tiana has just moved into her third year, so they're going to talk to us about their experiences of living at Warwick.

And also just a reminder that throughout the day we have accommodation open for you to go and have a look around all throughout the accommodation. There are current students who have been in accommodation; you can talk to them about their experiences, and my colleagues are over in the information fair across the Piazza in the information fair. They will be talking and you can talk to them on a one-to-one basis about any questions you have about the accommodation and any particular personal questions you've got.

Accommodation

But I wanted to start by just telling you a brief overview of what happens at the University in our accommodation. Going away to university is a big decision; working out what you're going to study is so important, but also it's important to know and be comfortable out where you're going to live.

So here at Warwick we guarantee all first-year students accommodation on campus, and the great thing about it being on campus means that you have more time to think about getting to your lectures on time, meeting friends, getting familiar with the study techniques without having to worry about which bus you need to take to get you to campus.

In the second and third year we do ask our students to move off campus to make way for new first-year students and most of our second years tend to live in Leamington Spa, Kenilworth or Coventry itself and I'll talk more about second year accommodation as we go through the presentation.

Supporting you in your residence

But for a lot of students going away to university is the first time that you have to live away from home and that can be really exciting. I know I couldn't wait to get away and live in halls of residence away. I went to university seven hours away from home, so that was fab, but it was also an incredibly nerve-racking experience. I had quite a lot of anxiety before I went.

At Warwick, we want to try and ease you into living in halls of residence, living at the University, so we have a residential life team that is a team of trained staff and postgraduate students who actually live in the accommodation alongside you as first-year students, and their roles are really just to, kind of, help you settle into living in university halls of residence - whether that might be dealing with any homesickness that you might experience; perhaps you've got some issues with someone taking some of your milk from the fridge.

They are there just to kind of help you with those, those kind of settling in issues and they also - when you apply to Warwick Accommodation, you actually apply and you write a personal kind of a little statement about yourself and what your interests. Our residential life team also look through those statements so when you are in your accommodation they've actually already matched you with some other students they think you're going to have something in common with, so when you do arrive on day one you've got something that you're having common with the people that you're living with – and that's a really nice, kind of, helps you settle in as well as helps you feel part of the kind of Warwick community.

Wellbeing Support

It’s all kind of the Warwick community, we are an incredibly and diverse community of people. Our students come from all over the world, from different cultures, different backgrounds, and we want to make sure that everybody can settle into life at university and make the most of all of the opportunities that we have.

So we have a Wellbeing Support Team. They’re your first point of call should you have any wellbeing concerns when you’re a student here; they're kind of a one-stop shop. You can go to them and they will signpost you if you do need any additional support.

We do also have a Disability Services team so if you do have a disability and you need additional support please do go and have a chat with my colleagues and discuss any requirements. We also think that mental health is really important, particularly around exam times when it can all get a bit stressful. That's the first time you've ever had to write a 3,000 word essay - you can go and talk with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Team and they do all sorts of things, from kind of rabbit cafes and pet cafes and things – so you can go and kind of chat to them.

And my colleagues from all three of those support services are going to be over in the information fair today as well so if you do have any questions you can go and speak to them directly but it's all really there to help you make the most of your time whilst you're living up at Warwick.

A campus university

So for me the best thing about Warwick is the fact that we're a campus University. Everything is located on this one site which is really going to help you make the most of your time whilst you're a student.

We've got over 300 different societies that you can join. There's over 60 different sports clubs that you can join. We have the brand new Sports Hub that has just opened in April this year so you can go and kind of explore that today and find out about the facilities that we have.

We've also got this building - the Arts Centre – so we have over 2,000 performances in this building alone. We had a comedian here last night – I’ll let the students probably tell you more about that and, and it's a it's a great place there's lots of things going on, lots of things to fill your time with, but with all that stuff going on with all those opportunities to make the most of, you're probably going to burn off some energy.

Food and drink

So how are you going to refuel? Let's look at where you're going to eat as a student.

At Warwick we have all of our residences are self catered and that means you can cook for yourself at a time that suits you, whether that's breakfast at 4:00 in the afternoon, whether it's lunch 2:00 in the morning - whatever you want to do your accommodation has self catering facilities.

We've also got over 22 cafes and restaurants and bars on campus, so if you don't want to cook or perhaps some of you can't cook, you can go and buy your food on campus. You've got a grocery store just across from here – Rootes’ - it's just across the piazza from here and so you can buy groceries on campus but about 10 minutes walk away is Cannon Park. There's about three supermarkets there where you can kind of go in and get a bigger groceries shop if you want to. I believe some of those supermarkets also deliver on to campus which might save you walking.

You also get, as a student at Warwick, a student card - it looks a little bit like this, but yours will say ‘student’ on it. These cards can be topped up with money and you can spend that money in of any of the catering outlets or shops on campus and the great thing about those cards is that a lot of those venues will give you 10% off your shopping. But also, for students in the room, this card can be topped up from anywhere in the world and that means even if your family are on holiday, all they need is an internet connection and you can go buy your bag of pasta, and so you've got that comfort blanket there I guess.

Residences

So where are you going to cook all this food that you're going to buy? Let's have a chat about the actual residences. Here at Warwick we have 13 different types of residences. We have about 6,900 bedrooms across the campus and so there's lots of choice available. They do all kind of look and feel kind of similar - there's kind of, you're gonna get a room - you're gonna get a bed - you're gonna get a wardrobe. Probably your desk where you can work. You can get a light switch, um, however there are some slight differences. Some are kind of more flat-style where you might have six bedrooms and you’re sharing one allocated kitchen. Some are perhaps more corridor-style living, where you're going to have a long corridor, lots of rooms off of that corridor, and you’re allocated a kitchen with which to use.

But essentially it's, it's very similar accommodation, but with 13 different types you might ask, ‘Well how am I going to choose, which one is the right one for me?’. And I think this is something for you to think about because really, it's not about which accommodation you live in - all of our students are pretty much - all of our students will tell you that their accommodation is best and I found that out at the last open day we went and spoke to quite a few students there - “I live here, I live here, it's the best one” - because really it's the people that you live with that will make your university experience.

So please, my advice to is try not to get too worried about which block you're in. The people that you live with will become your family, so even if you are dead set on having an ensuite accommodation because you don't want to share with strangers, those strangers on day one will become your family by the end of the term. And how many of you share a bathroom with a family member right now?

So just a little bit of a question for you to think about, however you might want ensuite accommodation, and in which case today go and have a look at some of our accommodation. You might want to fully throw yourself into communal living; you might want to share a bathroom with other people. My mum said to me, “You'll have to get to know people if you're sharing a bathroom with them”, and that was great advice because I kind of thought, “Well I might just stay in my room and kind of hide away.” I wasn't particularly confident, but actually sharing a bathroom with people really did make me go out and meet the people I had to share a bathroom with.

Budgets and lets

You might want to think about what budget suits you. Our accommodation is ranged as across a whole range of different budgets in there; you can get a guide about our accommodation from the accommodation stand in the information fair, and that does list all of our, kind of, prices. They've also got this table here, this was the prices from last year's accommodation, but it give you an indicator of what the prices will be next year.

You can also see from this that our accommodation has different lengths lets. So some of our accommodation you move out over some of the holidays, others you have it from the moment you move in in September through to June. You'll also see that about 50% of our accommodation has ensuite options.

I think there's about seven different types open today - don't quote me on that number - but go and have an explore round and I think you've probably heard enough from me for now, so I'm gonna hand you over to Taylor who has just finished his first year. He's moved into his second year and he's going to tell you about life from his experience.