Leaving Pollock was the best thing I’ve done at Edinburgh

It may be the grandest accommodation that Edinburgh has to offer, but you won’t learn anything much new in Pollock.

In September when freshers are about to come up to university, they of course look forward to the mad nights ahead of them but they also can’t wait for their new-found independence and meeting new, different people.

Although most people do have fun in Pollock, I’m afraid you don’t learn anything new about life.

Just as bad as Chancellors

It’s essentially boarding school all over again and most of the people you meet come from remarkably similar backgrounds. A hugely disproportional number of Pollock dwellers are English and used to attend private schools in either London or the Home Counties.

The fact that “what school did you go to?” is a genuine conversation starter speaks volumes about the place.

Just by having so many students living in one place, a school-like atmosphere is created where people try to fit in and be cool. This just does not exist in the following years at Edinburgh, where you have free reign over the people you choose to spend time with.

Last year’s absurd top-knot epidemic and the ludicrous reality that you can tell that so many people live in Pollock just by what they wear shows that some are pressured into looking or acting a certain way.

so pollock

University is about learning new things about yourself, being independent and not giving a shit about what other people think about you. Unfortunately, living in Pollock in first year makes it really difficult to do that.

Edinburgh is also an extremely expensive city to live in, and is supposedly the best city in the UK to be a landlord. Managing a budget in your latter years can be difficult, but in first year the price of Pollock accommodation is so high that most people aren’t self-reliant at all.

The cheapest Pollock accommodation is an eye-watering £670 a month, and that can rise up to a staggering £816 a month if you live in John Burnett. Even with a maintenance loan, and a part-time job that many have to rely on the financial support of their parents. After first year, many have a warped attitude towards money and it isn’t until second year that people realise how to spend it properly.

Granted, those figures do include the food provided by the JMCC, but you’re kidding yourself if you really think you need to pay that much money just so you don’t have to cook for yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, Pollock is definitely the best place to meet people when you come to Edinburgh, but after a few months or even a year are people there really that different to when they arrived?

You aren’t any better at cooking, you’re friends are pretty much the same as the ones you have at home and you’re still not great at preventing yourself from using that overdraft.

Outside Pollock you learn so quickly how to spend money better with have a more manageable expenditure. You’re so much more likely to get a job so you can support yourself and you learn that actually, going out four times a week really isn’t as fun or cool as you thought it was.