What your halls say about you

As soon as you move to Aber, the halls you live in start to define you.

If Aberystwyth Uni is a sorting hat, then its halls are its houses – and the time has come to separate the Gryffindors from the Slytherins.

Fferm Penglais

Well let’s face it, the double-bed, en-suite bathroom and dishwasher sold you on this accommodation, even if it’s more than a little pricey. You probably moved here for the luxurious rooms and kitchen – not so much for the dull corridors, you sort of feel like you live in a Premier Inn crossed with a hospital.

Chances are you intended to be a super studious person as you’re “so close to the library” but you’ve slowly drifted into a cycle of sleep, Netflix and procrastination like every normal student your age. After all you realised you don’t really fancy trekking up the PJM hill to then roast alive on the staircase.

You’re all about those good intentions and big nights out, but living in Fferm Penglais makes everything feel like an effort – not even Dominoes can be bothered to deliver up there. Cheap shopping trips to Lidl are a distant fantasy too as you relegate yourself to CK’s mystery meat and end up getting drunk in the kitchen rather than spending 30 minutes hiking to town. Good luck socialising, mate.

Pentre Jane Morgan

You are the party animals, or at least the most well-intentioned party animals. Moving to PJM you thought every night was going to be a house party which ended in a messy night in town.

PJM may not be the most glamorous accommodation, but you feel more independent than most. Nowhere else will you find students comfortable enough to stand in their doorway smoking a fag in their dressing gown or a group of friends having a BBQ on the lawn in late April.

You guys are a blend between the biggest party people and some of the most studious academics which makes for a nice mix. Especially when watching the hordes pass by from PJM Lounge. Your house-mates feel like family and you know everybody in your little culdesac, who needs those guys across the bridge anyway?

The noodles and Frosty Jacks may not lend much variety but you don’t mind as long as the essays get done and the parties don’t stop. PJM feels the most like a proper home on Penglais campus.

Cwrt Mawr

Cwrt Mawr is the bohemian capital of chaos on campus. Or at least on Yik Yak anyway. Chances are if you lived here you’ve kept up with horrendously drunk flat mates and erroneous upstairs lovemaking. Cwrt Mawr is a hive of activity with people from all walks of life, coming together in some sort of twisted, inebriated melting pot.

The residents of Cwrt Mawr are a welcoming, friendly bunch. The sort who would not mind lending you a tin of sugar for your tea, or spotting you a bev at pre drinks. It may not be the most luxurious building, and the hellish ordeal of cleaning the cramped kitchen for inspections will cause tensions to boil over, but you wouldn’t change your flatmates for the world. Friendship history is written in these halls.

Whilst your blocks are relatively spread out, you’re a tightly knitted bunch, making it easy to spot one of your own on a night out. The friends you make here you’re likely to stick with throughout university, even if you don’t end up living together next year.

Whilst you may have had to struggle through essay writing whilst listening to irregular vibrations and loud music protruding from the floors above and below you, you’ll miss the chaos once you’ve left.

Penbryn

Don’t deny it, the closest you’ve come to cooking is boiling the kettle – but who the hell cares? You get your food for free…kinda. People are going to label you “lazy” or “poor” because you have food allocations. If that upsets you, just go and grab some free (kinda) fish and chips from one of Aber’s most underrated restaurants, Tah Med Da.

Penbryn students are some of the most social people on campus, you’re in a prime location for both town and uni and you get to eat your meals together like a small, modern, Welsh version of Harry Potter. You know so many people just on your floor, let alone your block.

This is where lots of the hardcore sporty people live who are always off to get their “gains” at the gym or off for a “cheeky run”. That’s no bad thing, the closeness of Penbryn means when the party is on, everybody knows about it but if shit goes down, that can be bad too.

You won’t stay here, you’ll end up living in town for the rest of uni but that’s fine. Penbryn has given you a lifetime’s worth of social connections – you even know the staff at Ta Med by name, how is that not useful?

Rosser

You didn’t get into Fferm Penglais did you? You really wanted that en-suite and big kitchen but the price tag of Fferm put you off, but you don’t care, you’re happy with your cinder-block walls.

Rosser students are the quiet ones, you guys mostly keep to yourself but that doesn’t stop you having a good time. In the new blocks you’ve got a bar, sofas and tele and in the old halls you’ve got a table that is perfect for beer-pong – what more could you want?

Rosser students don’t even need to leave the flat to get wasted just call round the neighbours and get sloshed in the kitchen. Being one of the most popular accommodation blocks you probably have the biggest mix of people – you live with some of the weirdest or the coolest people you’ll know during your time here.

Be smug in the knowledge that other than PJM and Fferm Penglais you’re the only guys with your own lounge. Only problem is EVERYBODY goes there! Night before a deadline? You may as well stay in bed because you’re not getting a computer in the lounge unless you pay your way in.

Trefloyne

You’re a blend of everything on campus. The chaos of Cwrt Mawr, the luxury of Rosser and the social life of Penbryn.

There may be few of you in numbers, but when you all get together it gets off the chain. Your halls are nice for the price you’re paying and it comes with a free rivalry with Cwrt Mawr. You don’t know many people from outside your block because everybody you need to have a good time lives in the halls with you.

Everything gets out of hand at Trefloyne, the parties get too wild, the nights in town get too messy, your budget disappears too quickly but hell, isn’t that what university is all about?

You probably spend 90% of your time sleeping, watching Netflix and preparing for the next party whilst the other 10% is spent muttering “shit” repeatedly under your breath as you jam together an essay due the next day.

Brynderw

If Fferm Penglais is the hospital, then Brynderw is the prison. First things first, you either forgot to apply for accommodation until the last minute or never came to an open day to see it, right?

By now you’ve probably learnt how to get 20 people into your shoebox kitchen and how to cook using a lighter after maintenance didn’t fix your 18th Century cooker for a week. Your room is smaller than you’d like and shower usage causes countless bouts of passive aggression. But it’s not all doom and gloom in Brynderw, you live in town and have the money to take advantage of that.

Almost every night ends up in town and the low rent price means you hopefully won’t be seeing your overdraft until the second semester. You guys are probably the most chill people on campus, sometimes too chill. You don’t care what others think about you and your assignments get done (well, most of them), so what else is there to worry about?

Seafront Residences

Chances are if you live on the seafront then you’re the nature loving kind of student. The sea may batter your windows and shut down the road but you don’t care, it’s kind of refreshing to wake up in the morning with your doorstep swamped in seaweed.Winter may be a bit rough and chilly, but as a nature loving person, there are few things you enjoy more than watching natural selection in action, as students try to see how close they can get to the waves.

Yes, it’s a pain to get up the hill for lectures but somehow it doesn’t feel like too much of an effort when you have 100mph winds to push you up Penglais. Seafront living has its social benefits too – you’re probably not the sort of students who do pre-drinks, you like to head straight to the pubs, and why not? They’re right on your doorstep! The price is reasonable leaving lots of money for shopping and if you make friends with senior students then your social life will never be a problem.