Applying for Brookes housing is like a game show

When do you find thousands of Brookes students all out of bed and raring to go before 11am? Only ever for the nightmare that is shared housing day. It’s the day of dread that sends fear down our spines. You hype yourself up that this year you’re actually going to be successful in your quest for a half decent home. It’ll be right by campus with no mouldy patches and double glazed windows. But suddenly, you’re hit by the disappointment that you’re going to be temporarily homeless once again.

The enduring process of applying for a Brookes house compares to some kind of athletic game show. It’s the Ninja Warrior equivalent of uni experiences.

First, you have to sprint to the houses when the list is released, frantically dodging the obstacles that face you along the way. People being out or not answering the door, other groups trying to barge in front of you for that nice six bed on Divinity road. People treat this stuff like they’re trying to win an Olympic gold in house viewings.

Wandering round your Barbie Dream House, you can picture your own pre-drinks in that kitchen before Purple Turtle, yourself chundering in that upstairs bathroom after MNB and taking your fuzzies shag back to that nice spacious attic room.

Then, you have to give yourself that pep talk. Systematically, you strategise who’s going to wake who up and click on what.  “We really could get that Cowley road one if we’re quick enough team.”

Six alarms going off the next morning and the WhatsApp is vibrating like there’s been some kind of emergency. “Shit I can’t log on”, “my password hasn’t come through”, “Computer Programming would be simpler than this”.

In the end, of course, it all ends in tears. You won’t get the one you wanted, and steep agency fees and deposits leave you in your overdraft whilst still working three part time jobs.

For those of us who aren’t Olympic medal winning typists or happened to be in a lecture at the time are (how do you put it?) fucked.

By 11:02- most of the houses were gone. Left were the one bedroom flats for the loners, the four beds at Wheatley that will still be there at the end of May for the engineering student stragglers, and the nine beds in Cowley with only three rooms available. It’s exhausting.

Second year Mathematics student Nick Perrott said: “it’s ludicrous. Now I have to extend my overdraft to go private”.

He’s definitely not the only one. Many students have been faced with the fear that they’ll have to return back to halls with the weirdos who play Xbox and smoke in the bathroom until the early hours and those who return from tea society and smell out the kitchen with their weird lentil-based concoctions.