Living in Bournemouth: It’s not all sex, parties and nights out

Any second or third year student will tell you that living in a house with fellow students can either be an amazing or terrible experience. Whether you love it or you hate it, there are countless differences between living at home, and living at uni.

Sex (and the noise)

Are you really friends with your housemates if you haven’t heard every single one of them banging at some point throughout the year? Hell, it’s got to the stage where it is weird if I don’t hear mine having sex. Although many people may find just the idea of this uncomfortable – if you are going to live in a student house, you kind of just have to accept it. It could be worse – my Mum answered my FaceTime call, right as my best friend climaxed in the room next to me. Aces. And guaranteed, if you make a name for yourself for doing this, and keep your flatmates up with it – they WILL hold it against you. Forever.

Nights out

Now I, a boy from the countryside of West Sussex, haven’t had to come home-home after many nights out before, (shoutout to Gemma for letting us stay at yours after every night out to Sheiks. Respect.) but I know that I would never dream of going for a night out at home and coming back at 3:30am and trying to fumble around and cook some drunk food or throwing up. But get to uni? You’ll be face first in that freezer trying to find something to feast on within five minutes of your return from Cameo Wednesday. Perfectly acceptable. That’s just a way of life in a uni house.

Parties

I’m sure we have all been to some pretty wild house parties at home-home. I’m sure we’ve all also been to some pretty shit ones. However Bournemouth’s house parties for second year students (usually) are something else. They’re messy, loud, trashy, and everyone is oh-so drunk. Fancy dress seems to be a recurring theme – so first years, you’ve got that to look forward to next year.  So whether you enjoy house parties or not – you better learn to. Fast. Come second year, they become the new Lollipop and the new Cameo. When you finally realise that you actually can’t afford to taxi to town and back twice a week and you admit defeat against your workload/going out life – you will learn to love house parties, and I guarantee you they’ll be as good, if not better – than your ones at home.

Eating

I don’t know about anyone else, but I for one sure know that my mum always tried to keep tabs on what I was eating and tried to make me healthier. Get to uni however, and this is totally in your control. (Cue devil and angel on your shoulder.) The choices are endless: Dominos, Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald’s, you name it – Bournemouth has got it. The real test of your maturity and independence is how much you fight these urges, and instead cook some proper food. I am a sucker for take-away, I think at my worst in first year I had three Dominos in one week. Yes you read that right. Three. However in second year, you have longer days, more is expected of you, you’re that extra year older – you kind of have a responsibility to try to cook and eat better.  You’ll inevitably fail and resort to waiting until you’re back home to your mum to get some proper food.

Cleanliness

Every single student will have at least one housemate who simply does not understand the meaning of being clean and tidy. Whether they were deprived of a basic childhood, or it’s down to plain laziness – you will experience it in some form at some point throughout your uni life. It’s simply a fact. Students are messy. I’m not just talking about a packet here and there. Oh no no. I’m talking about 12 bin bags in the corner of the kitchen, random lumps of chicken left in the sink, mysterious stains all over the kitchen surfaces. Now compare this, (unless you live like this at home too, in which case – please leave now) to your home life – I don’t know about you, but I know if I leave something out of the fridge, or leave a plate NEAR the dishwasher and not actually in it – I am called out STRAIGHT away by my parents.

Finally – student living summed up. The difference living as a student away from home compared to back home is incredible really. I genuinely think that my parents would not last a single night in a student house. There are so many aspects of life that you have to just readjust to and accept – messy kitchens, sticky floors, looking after each other as hungover messes, arguing over who should buy the next batch of loo-roll, a hob that gets cleaned once every two months. All kinds of things, you kind of just have to be okay with. But then you also have so many positives to it also – freedom, your own rules, eating whatever you want, wearing whatever you want, having nobody to answer to, encouraging each other’s worst traits and hobbies (drinking, of course) and going out till 4am and stuffing some Peri Peri chips down your gob post-Lost Gardens. All in all – student living has equal pros to cons, and I guess the only way to find out which you like best, is to try it for yourself!