A Place for Possible podcast

Listen to our podcast series, where you can hear current undergraduate and postgraduate students share their experiences of studying at Bath.

Episode 1: Accommodation and living in Bath

Clare: Welcome to our first episode of the A Place for Possible the University of Bath Student podcast. Our undergraduate and postgraduate students will be sharing their first hand experience of Bath with you. I'm Clare Cobb, the Residence Experience Manager, and today's episode is all about student accommodation and living in Bath. Today's guests are Tori, who will be talking about her private accommodation.

Abby, who will be talking about Carpenter House in the city, and Surabhi, who will be sharing her experience of living in Westwood here on campus.

Okay, so, if we can start with some introductions.

Abby: Hi, my name's Abby and I'm in my second year in chemical engineering. And I lived in Carpenter House my first year.

Surabhi: Hi, my name is Surabhi and I'm studying aerospace engineering. I'm in first year and I'm currently living in Westwood on campus.

Tori: Hi, my name is Tori. I'm studying automotive engineering with electric propulsion, my masters. I'm currently privately renting.

Clare: Great. Thank you. So if we can just start with, talking about how you went about choosing your accommodation.

So what was important to you? Is it location, prices, amenities or anything else?

If we start with you, Abby.

Abby: Yeah. So, initially, when I was choose my accommodation, the biggest priority for me was price. I had been to a residential in my year 12 summer and spoken to a lot of current students who kind of told me that an ensuite might not have been the most vital thing.

And I kind of was like, yeah, I agree with that. I'd rather save £50 a week and so I just went with price. I picked the seven cheapest options. And I got given Carpenter and City Centre.

Clare: Fab. Thank you. And Surabhi.

Surabhi: Yeah. I agree with Abby there. My priority was also on price. So I made a list of accommodations and ordered them in decreasing price.

And then also whether to have ensuite. Also, other than eat and drink credit, because I wasn't very confident in my ability to cook for myself and Westwood actually now doesn't have any eat or drink credit and originally when I found out that I got less, I was very, very sad because I was like, how will I feed myself but it actually doesn't matter.

Like, I don't think that you need eat and drink credit really. I think I am doing fine without food and drink credit, but yeah, for me, it was also price.

Clare: Great. We'll come back about how you managed to cook in your accommodation. And Tori?

Tori: For me, it was definitely a split between necessity and, price for sure, because, I found it, like, towards the end of summer when I was supposed to be eventually coming to Bath as a master's student, and a lot of it, ended up being taken up for everything, was kind of booked up with the University.

So I decided to go on Facebook and look online as well as the University has their own like online portal to kind of find people to live with. So I looked there and then it was definitely much more cheaper and affordable for me to rent privately as well.

Clare: Fantastic. And so whereabouts in Bath are you?

Tori: I'm in St. James Square, so it's just like a really nice area in Bath.

Clare: Lovely. Yeah. Is it close to anything?

Tori: It's close to the Royal Crescent. It's close to Victoria Park. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it's really nice. And I enjoy it because it's like. I feel like I like coming to uni and I have my own life here. But then I also feel like I have my life, where I live as well.

Clare: Yeah, absolutely. So, Tori, you said about, how you used, the different search places to find your accommodation. One of which one is the student pad, which is the university managed accommodation finder. Was there anything else that you had in your kind of thoughts as to what was going to make your decision for you?

Were there any must-haves in your accommodation?

Tori: I think for me it was probably a bike rack like where I live has a really good bike rack and it was unfortunate because I realise Bath is extremely hilly. So I just cycle around the flat part.

I would say I wish that I was more aware of like the amenities in terms of, like where I live, I don't have a living room, and I wish that I looked into those kind of things you wouldn't think about, but I think I'm happy with everything else in terms of like, what was my necessities for my house. So how many people do you share with? I share with three other people. So it's two boys and one girl, and we have two bathrooms, the kitchen.

And I didn't even think I would have thought about how far away is from the bus stop, but luckily it's only like five minutes away. And, it's really close to the Sainsbury's in town as well.

Clare: Oh, fab. Very convenient. And Surabhi and, Abby, you're both in university managed or you were in university managed accommodation. You're currently in university managed accommodation, both of which are standard options.

But Surabhi, you're on campus. So quite, convenient up here. And, Abby, you are in the city centre. Abby, how did you choose it? Was that one of your choices to be in the city centre? Like, how did that work out?

Abby: Yeah, so, I probably didn't put enough thought into that as I probably should have done into my choices, but it was about my fourth or my fifth option.

When I did first get put in the city centre I was a little bit gutted. Because I think I didn't realise how big the student community is in the city was as well, so I thought I'd be missing out on a lot, not being on campus.

I think I got over that really quickly when I realised how awesome it was to be so close to everything. You're so close to the nightlife. You're so close to the shops. And I really enjoyed having that separation from campus as well, obviously university can be quite a stressful environment, quite stressful, an intense academic environment. So getting to kind of just leave campus at the end of the day and switch off, that's why I really, really like the city centre as well.

I think it's so beautiful. Like, when else are you able to live in a place that beautiful for a price that is actually quite affordable for a student as well.

Clare: Oh, that's good to hear. And how about on campus? So how's it, again, sharing your facilities in, quite high numbers, aren't they? In Westwood?

Surabhi: Yes. So in Westwood, there's 17 of us. Honestly, it's not as bad as it sounds like. When I first realised that there was only 17 people in one, like accommodation, I thought it would be chaos, especially the shared bathrooms. So we have, four showers and four toilets. I felt like people are going to be constantly queuing and very hard, especially in the mornings.

But I have never met a person in the bathroom at the same time that I have been. And it's been like more than half a year.so I think we all have our own schedules. And another concern of mine was like the kitchens, because we have two kitchens and so there's like an equal split, there's nine and one and eight and in the other, and my Westwood house is vertical accommodation. So there's a kitchen on the bottom and one at the top, and I'm in the top kitchen and, there's not as many of us there. And I think we keep it relatively clean and, it's not been like horrible from what I've heard from other accommodations.

Clare: That's really good. Sounds like you've got quite nice housemates then to share the load with. How do you agree to, sort things out, such as? You know, kitchen etiquette and washing up and taking out the rubbish from your accommodation and things like that? How do you kind of come to that agreement?

Surabhi: The first six weeks were kind of chaotic because the first six weeks, the Res Life actually take out the bins for you. Since we were at the top, we don't even think about like someone just took out our bins and we were like, oh yeah, that's fine. And we didn't realise, you know, after six weeks that it would stop, so that was as a surprise It clearly says on the noticeboard, but no one checks the noticeboard. And then, after six weeks for like the next two weeks, I think this is around like the start of November.

It was insanely chaotic because people were like the bin is full. And then they were like, okay, so what, but then just before Christmas, we got finally got a rota down because some people reached a breaking point.

Clare: Wow.

Surabhi: Because there's eight of us, we have like four pairs, and we just clean the kitchen once a week and then take out the bins. So, so now it's okay.

Clare: Absolutely. And Abby was the same kind of experience here in Carpenter with your housemates?

Abby: I think it was in Freshers Week. I think the Res Life team came round everyone's accommodation. I think in exchange for free pizza, we had to sign a living agreement. So we were just sat down as a flat, and sort of got to know each other and where everyone stood with different issues. I know one of the of the big ones is like dishes lying around.

So we all kind of just said, don't leave the dishes in the kitchen, dry them once you've washed them. So we didn't really have have a massive problem with cleaning And also I think the bin stuff, luckily, because we were in the city last year, we got them taken out the whole year.

Then again, think as you get to know people as well, it's easier to sort of like, hey, Could you bring the things from the kitchen? I just want to cook here. So everyone took good care of it as well because I think we just respected one another. And also we fully followed the agreement for free pizza.

Clare: And what are your housemates like? Are they the from the same courses as you or...?

Abby: There were nine in my, in my flat. One guy was on the same course as me, and we were all STEM. So we had some physics, maths, mechanical engineers and civil engineer.

Clare: Great.

Abby: So that was I was quite like cool thing that they sort of matches up regarding what they interpret are interests to be. And I've made some, some really, really good lifelong friends and I'm living with two of them now, this year. And, I keep in contact with, with the majority of them.

Clare: Okay. That's great.

Abby: So it's been really cool. And I there's another girl in my accommodation who lives in Seville so I've actually been able to go and visit them at home.

Clare: Wow, that sounds fun. And, what was it like you said about, you know, you moved out of, university accommodation to your second year to have into private accommodation, and obviously you knew your housemates and you were going to go with them and move into private competition. What was that experience like for you all to decide and search for private accommodation?

Abby: To be fair, I think it was quite, quite a fun experience. It's really scary when when you start hearing really, really early on, some, some people will find a group maybe October and look for a house then, I think it's important that you sort of work out who you want to live with and don't rush into a group because you obviously your friendships change so quickly because you change so quickly throughout your first year as well.

So we sort of found a group of people we wanted to live with, and to be fair, we did sort of rush into renting a house, because I think it got to about Christmas and we realised Oh, my God, we've not actually started looking. But, we managed to to find a house within about a week and a half which was I think that's really good for us. But we sort of we looked on all of the websites like Student Pad, Uni Homes. But housing in both is quite competitive. It is just a lot of trial and error. It was, it was a fun bonding experience. We all spent lots of time sitting on someone's accommodation floor just scrolling and looking at houses.

Clare: Wow

Abby: Yeah. But I think when you're moving in with people, it's important to not only find people you get along with, but find people who also have have similar priorities. Yeah. So I know one thing is that my whole house kind of all agreed on was price. We all had quite a specific budget that we wanted to stick to.

And I think because we all understood that it's become a lot easier to live with these people as well, because we have similar priorities with how how we want to use our bills or how we want to, use different things in the house as well.

Clare: That's a really good tip. Thank you. Tori. So you, don't live in university accommodation and then you're in private sector. So, which doesn't always necessarily mean you live with other university students. What are your housemates like?

Tori: So I'm currently living with, they're all from Bath Spa. Okay. And it's been interesting because for sure, because we study different things, so they have a lot of coursework, so they have a bit more availability and can be up later than me at night sometimes.

But, we have a group chat. And I think maybe when you don't know these people, when you don't know who you're living with, it's a bit more difficult in terms of like, having a good communication, like in terms of, like actually getting results when you ask for things in some ways. But I think we've managed to like, still have a good amount of respect for each other, which is the most important thing.

But I was definitely in a rush because, but it's very competitive with houses. And by the time that I confirm my place and stuff, that was in June, July time and most of the houses I've gone by, so yeah.

Clare: Great. And Surahbi. Have you ever faced any housemate issues with your housemates that you're not currently living with. You don't want to name no names. But have you ever, have you experienced housemate issues in your time here? And, if you have, have you been able to resolve them pretty quickly?

Surabhi: Not any major issues that I can think of. I think one of them is definitely my accommodation is not a quiet accommodation, and, they fully take advantage, especially on Wednesdays.

And because Wednesday nights out and stuff. But there's like 2 or 3 people who are doing Pharmacy in my accommodation and they have like really crazy schedules, like they have like a 7pm sometimes. They were particularly annoyed by the loud noises late into the night.

And, one of the girls, she's scheduled like a meeting. I don't know how detailed I can go into this. We did have a collective flat meeting. And then, the offending parties were all very understanding.

Clare: Oh, that's really good.

Surabhi: It's not as bad, I think after, like, 11pm. They can be loud until 11pm and then it's okay. But obviously like on the weekends and stuff there's, and it's just during the weekdays that we said that we wouldn't be loud.

Yeah. That was just general noise. There's also like kitchen stuff which I briefly mentioned earlier. It was more like cleanliness. Like people would just take something from their cupboard or the fridge and just leave it on the counter and we have limited counter space. So people, just because, you know, we can't really cook. So we decided as a joke that, you know, if you leave stuff out it's going out the window.

Clare: Oh that's great. So if you were to, choose again, if you'd like to be allocated anywhere in particular, where would you choose? Would you be happy to be allocated, you know, live back in Westwood? Or would you think, actually, if I had my time again, would I put somewhere else on my list? And I know ensuite actually, the reality is not been that much of a priority for you guys. But is there anything that you would change?

Surabhi: I think, Westwood is honestly fine. I think the for the price, the room that you get is really good. The only thing I would change is maybe to a quiet flat. And I don't really drink alcohol, and, I don't have a problem being around people who drink alcohol, but, from what I've heard from people who do live in a quiet, alcohol free accommodation, it kind of sounds like my vibe. So I might choose that next time, but it's not a huge thing. But in terms of another accommodation, I think Eastwood sounds nice.

Clare: Very popular end of campus. Yeah. So. Is there anything Abby, is there anything that, before you arrived at university that you were particularly worried about sharing, you know, sharing accommodation with people that you possibly didn't know before you moved here?

Abby: Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm cheap and I didn't want to go for an ensuite but that doesn't mean I wasn't worried about bathrooms and things. But you get used to it so quickly. Because like every everything changes when you move to university. You're suddenly living on your own, your responsible for your cooking.

And so I think you sort of just learn to embrace all of these changes and, and some small stuff like just sharing the bathroom. It kind of gets, gets lost in all of the other big things that are going on. I think cooking cooking was a difficult one. Like, I still think I've got that.

Clare: Did you do much cooking before uni?

Abby: No, no.

Clare: So a big learning curve when you arrived here. What's your meal of choice then?

Abby: I had a lot of spaghetti Bolognese. My biggest heartbreak at first year was actually. I don't know if we'll go into this later, but our freezer broke once and all my spaghetti Bolognese supplies defrosted.

Clare: Oh, wow.

Abby: But it did get fixed very quickly. But yeah.

Clare: Maybe, maybe maybe some variety and some contingencies and a bit of cooking training before you arrive?

Abby: Yeah. And I think also just living with people, who are not your family. I mean, I have siblings as well. So I think that's sort of the relationship you might have with somebody if that makes for them. There's also some people that you might not necessarily get along with, as well.

I was worried about not getting along with some people. I mean, I did get along with the majority of my flatmates as well, but I think you also just learn to kind of deal with that, learn to manage, manage your relationships as people and sort of see how they do things differently and be quite accepting of that as well.

Clare: Yeah, that's really good. So thank you. And Tori, were you worried about anything before you, I know it was last minute, your accommodation search must have been quite stressful for you, but were you worried - anything particularly played on your mind before you moved in?

Tori: I should have been, but I wasn't. Unfortunately, I was met with all the things that worried me. When I came to Bath unfortunately, I took over someone else's tenancy in the house. So when I got to the house, the Wi-Fi hadn't been set up, the bills hadn't been set up. And like certain people in the group wanted to take responsibility of it. But, when you meet other people, you kind of have to find your balance of like, we might not be the best of friends, but we can definitely get along enough to chat and still rely on each other in some ways for like emergencies in some aspects.

And with the Wi-Fi situation, I didn't have any Wi-Fi in my room, and I still don't have any Wi-Fi in my room. And, I just ended up, my mum thankfully, she upgraded my plan, so I have unlimited. So if I stand by the window, I have data, so I'm really glad about that. And, I think when I came to where I lived, I was taking the U1, but then I was always running late and that was quite stressful.

But then I started taking the 20 Bus and things got better. So I think it was a mix of like I came to face these challenges. I even got used to these challenges. Or, I made the challenges better.

Clare: So yeah, without Wi-Fi, that must have been a real challenge. Did you start to pitch up in other places to kind of get your Wi-Fi?

Tori: Connections, trying to think, on campus Wi-Fi is very good, but I would have to come to campus and and, in town, it's like I didn't want to keep buying coffee, so I think just having my window on the side, having it as a hotspot and just getting on yeah, it was so when I moved into my second year, accommodation it was about two weeks where we had no service and no Wi-Fi. We were just reconnecting with nature, taking lots of walks.

Clare: Do any of you being in the city use the Virgil building? and the spaces in there?

Abby: I am a massive fan.

Clare: Are you? fab.

Abby: I used to just like, eat my dinner over there because we were living in Carpenter less than five minutes. So I loved it. There's also, like, a social space attached to my accommodation, so I did a lot of studying there as well.

Clare: Great. Yes. And as Bath is a nice small city, so actually you don't. It doesn't take long to get from one end to the other. Surabhi, can you give our listeners any tips on how to make friends or find your community? When you started here, was there any opportunities to do so before you arrived or what did you join in with when you arrived here?

Surabhi: I know there was just like a general, group chat for your accommodation, and I joined up and, thankfully, mine was very active, and I felt like I already knew the people. I just had to place a face to their name when I came here, and then on the first day, like, it was very sunny and we, all brought snacks and we sat outside our accommodation, really got to know each other.

And then during Freshers Week, I literally went to almost every single event but like, even though I did that, I didn't feel like I made any friends at the end, which was actually kind of depressing, not going to lie, because I was like, oh, I put myself out there so many times, I still haven't met anybody.

That's because it was just a week. The friends I have now and we met them in like reading week, which I think it's like in October. Yeah. So yeah. And also thankfully in my accommodation there's like five of us who do the same course. So at the start we all like sat with each other in lectures. So after that I kind of diverged and sat with other people.

And then through them you meet other people. And then also, I joined a bunch of clubs and societies, which helps as well.

Clare: That's a really good point, isn't it? Because I think a lot of people who come to university and come into accommodation have that expectation of finding their people in the minutes that they arrive in, but actually, it's okay just to stop and, you know, try lots of different things and meet people through different activities or spending time in different areas.

And then you will meet your. You will meet your people. I think it's the key, but not to put any pressure on it. And you might be that the people you meet first, which is why Abby, when you said earlier about, you know, don't choose you know next year house to soon because you might not like the people that you've chosen with because you might meet people.

And actually those friendships will just evolve and change during the first few weeks. Anyway, so that's a really interesting point. So, Surabhi, have you found your housemates for next year?

Surabhi: Yeah, I'm actually living with, some of my current housemates now but they're in the downstairs kitchen. So, my other two flatmates for next year are in my house, but they're in the downstairs kitchen, so I don't interact with them as much.

Clare: You know how clean they are in the kitchen, then? You know, not sharing the kitchen with them will be a shock.

Surabhi: I trust them though because they have each other to vouch for unless they made an agreement, I am not aware of. They don't know how clean I am.

Clare: And how did you find that process, like finding your house that you're going to move into?

Surabhi: Yeah, it was actually very, very convoluted, not going to lie, because we had four people originally and we had found a house. I think we had it in the first week of December, and it was a really nice house and very good price as well.

We had signed the contract and we, had put down our deposits as well. So the last thing we had to do was like, I don't know, some other form, but it was basically done.

And, then we got together one night and we were just talking about, like, how you make the space more ours and like kind of activities we would do. And then one of the, people, she, she just had a misconception that she would be staying with us for like, more than one year because she had a placement year at the end of her course but we had it in third year.

Clare: Oh, I see, yeah.

Surabhi: So because of that misconception, she was like, no, I need to stay with people for until I have some stability in her choice. She dropped out. So then we lost the house, which was really sad because it was like right before Christmas and we were like, oh, the houses are gone now.

But we got our deposit back.

Clare: That's good.

Surabhi: So yeah, one of my course mates, she was like the main person who is calling agencies and stuff. Then because she was really busy with her course, she would call agencies and find, find a viewing. And then I would go to that was like teamwork. So the minute we came back in January, we were like, going to viewings.

So, we got it really quick our house now, especially because it's a three person house, it's not as common, but somehow we found it in like the first week that we came back. So it's a bit far away. But then I was talking to other people that I'm friends with and they were like, oh, I found a house on the same road. And I was like, that's insane. I didn't know it was student accommodation, so maybe it's not that bad.

Clare: So big question. Do you have any tips for future students about choosing accommodation? So I'll start with you, Abby, what would you?

Abby: I live in Carpenter, obviously. Of course. I think. Right, right a list of all the things that are your main priorities, whether that be you want a quiet flat, whether you want an alcohol free flat, if you'd like an ensuite, if you're not too bothered about it, as well, make sure you, you stick to sort of a budget that you're comfortable with as well.

I know sometimes you might go online and see like these really fancy accommodations with these facilities as well, but it might be out of your budget, let's say, because of it's university accommodation at the end of the day. And I think what makes it is the people you live with, which is ultimately a completely random selection. So kind of go in with an open mind stick to something you can afford and something you're comfortable with any sort of needs that you might have as well.

Like, I know one of my flatmates who kind of didn't do that. He lived in the city centre in his first year, but really could have benefited from being on campus. And it sort of took him a years buffer to actually talk to Res Life about that. And I mean, he's doing a lot better now.

He's living on campus. So if you do have additional support needs you might need to just mention to them. I definitely do that as well, just so that the university can make sure that they're giving you the best accommodation for you as well, because ultimately, you also want the best for you.

Clare: That's a really good point to make actually about. Yeah. If you've got a coming to university with additional requirements, get in touch. We can help. Surabhi, any tips that you would give?

Surabhi: I would reiterate, just on making a list with your priorities. That's what I did. And also, I literally stalked the universities accommodation page where you can see the 360 view.

Clare: Okay.

Surabhi: So you actually know what your room looks like. Yeah. And also as well as what it looks like seeing how close it is, if it's on campus, to the buildings that you'd be visiting most. like mine is not too far away from the mechanical engineering department, but I know that some other accommodations might not be. So I have the luxury of waking outside.

Clare: That's not the same for you. Yeah.

Abby: I mean, if you get the chance, if you're coming to visit the city centre and visit campus as well, and sort of have a feel for what it is like to live on campus. Do I like how this feels, or do I like how the city feels? Think about what your kind of priorities are for for first year.

Is it sort of more there to make friends and you quite like to go out and meet people and really use that for that first year to just get to know the city and the place you might want to be. You might end up wanting to be in the city centre, then closer to where lots of different social events going on, or someone who is interested in being close to the library and all of the academic facilities as well.

Somebody that wants to go to every single one of your lectures as well, being on campus can sort of support that. But because everyone comes to uni and everyone has different things that they want to get out of it as well have have a look at that. Probably compare how living on campus to living in the city might, might help meet some of the things you'd like.

Clare: Great.

Surabhi: I think one point also is like, if you don't get your first choice, don't get too upset about it. Because I think also just have an open mind to the situation. And the university I know is very supportive If like people want to have changes or stuff like that.

So I think just have an open mind and don't think it's the end of the world if you don't get your first choice because there's always loads of options and it might end up being the best flat in the world. But yeah.

Clare: And Tori being postgraduate here, there's lots of options for you, for accommodation. Is there anything, any tips that you'd give someone on the search for postgraduate accommodation?

Tori: I think just apply as early as possible. But also, really take the time to understand, the different accommodations, I think, I just finished graduating, so I was on a high of, like, running around and having a lot of fun. So I didn't sit down and actually figure out, or really calculate much.

I just thought, oh, that's way too much. I can't afford that. And I was like, I just went privately and it ended up being my mum who did most of it for me. Yeah, I think just sit down and really like, remember, like this is probably going to affect you in some way in the future.

Clare: And so all of you living in the city, obviously, not living in the city because of course, you live on campus for Abby and Tori living in the city.

How is it traveling to campus? Like how how are you find that? Tori, you have a bike that you don't use. What are your comments on how you get to campus. Do you walk up the hill?

Tori: I've had to walk once. Once because I used to take the U1. Like, I would walk down to Bath Abby and I'll take the bus from there. But I decided to start taking the bus 22, which I didn't realise is closer to me. But the only problem with the bus 20 is that it comes once, every hour. But then I started using the bus org. so every morning I wake up at the same time, around, 7:30 and I check. I open bus org and I see where the buses, but the bus isn't always on the hour, so it's like it might be a bit slow, a bit late.

So I'm just watching it. I'm like, okay, I've got five minutes, so close my eyes like, oh, it's it's on it's way up the hill like a certain patch. I'm like, okay, get up. And then I'm like, okay, I'm looking at it. It's around the corner. Shoes now. And then it's often a quick dash down the road to make sure that it's there.

And if it's like if there's like maybe five people lining up, I'm like, okay, it takes a minute for them to pay so I can so I could see the bus. But yeah, I think that system is working for me right now. I've yet to miss a bus in one and a half weeks, so I'm really proud of myself.

Abby: So yeah, that's a good streak. Yes. I've been lucky that I'm in Carpenters which is right outside the main bus stop at, like, Dorchester Street. So where you can get the U1. And where I live now in Oldfield park, is really close to the U2 bus stop. The only problem is their regular but, they get fill up in the mornings and it gets really, really busy, so you can end up waiting quite a lot. Tends to not be an issue at, like, different times of the day. It's also really good if you're like up on campus late. The buses run throughout the night as well. The only challenge with busses is just they get really busy in the morning sometimes. So you have to kind of give yourself about half an hour extra, extra leeway.

Clare: And you can always walk.

Abby: No!

Clare: So Surabhi, the opposite question for you, I suppose. Do you spend much time going down into Bath from campus once a day?

Surabhi: Yes, because I go to the gym in the city. And one thing that I notice is the busses are so expensive, like I don't have a bus pass, so I just pay, every time.

And that's why I, I walk down the hill and then I take the bus back. So the walk is also like a warm up in the gym. That's cuz it's so expensive.

I, I made use of the birthday bus card thing, but my birthday is in December, so like half of the month was gone anyway because of the holiday. But, the birthday bus is actually valid for two months. So I also used it in January and I used it so much.

I think next year I might consider getting a bus pass, but I don't know if I use if I use it to its full, so i might have to do some maths to see how much it adds up to.

Clare: Okay. Well, thank you for spending some time with me today. Going through some really interesting stuff about living here in Bath. Living in university accommodation as first years, and of course postgraduate accommodation that's in the private sector. So different challenges and stories there which are great. And for you listeners, I hope you learn a lot about the wide range of options for student accommodation on campus in the city.

If you have any questions, just contact us at reslife@bath.ac.uk and we look forward to welcoming you to episode two, which is all about sustainability at Bath. But in the meantime, good luck with your studies.