Selly Oak might be a ghetto, but it’s our ghetto

When moving in to the second year of uni, and inevitably out of the comforts of halls, we are faced with the choice of migrating to Selly Oak, Edgbaston or Harborne. And with students taking up 76 per cent of the population of Bournbrook, it’s not hard to see Selly is the most popular choice.

So how come as soon as anyone moves in, all they do is moan about their new digs? Sure, your house might be constantly freezing, and there will always be at least something electrical that doesn’t work – but at least you’re not stuck miles away from the rest of student-based civilisation.

Selly Oak ticks all the priorities of the lazy student’s wish list: you now live five minutes away from all your mates, and a maximum of 20 minutes away from uni. Move to Harborne, and you’re lucky to find yourself a place closer than a half-hour walk. There’s also a train station in Selly, so travelling to the city centre is about as easy as it gets. Bonus.

Go back to Harborne

The fact there’s a Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Aldi pretty much next door to each other means all tastes and levels of food-snobbery are catered for. And if you really feel the need to shop at Waitrose, you should probably question your decision to live away from home anyway.

And what would student life be without Rooster’s at 3am and Selly Sausage to soothe that hangover the next day? With normal adults who have real jobs living in places like Harborne and Edgbaston, prepare to pay full prices for your booze from the off-licence or at the pub.

Stories of robbery and theft has to be one of the main things putting you off the delights of Selly, but even this has proven to be less of an issue recently. The police have reported a drastic improvement in crime rates since last year, with a 100 per cent reduction of robbery in February.

£5 pitchers? Don’t mind if we do

So yes, Selly Oak may be dubbed a “ghettoville”, and it’s probably not the kind of place you dream about moving to after graduation, but for the student lifestyle it ain’t too shabby.

Stay true to Selly and it will stay true to you.