Moving on up from next year’s housemates
“Omg we should so, like, live together next year. We’re best friends.” Hey look! It’s that ubiquitous sentence of a first year’s winter term. A sentence exclaimed in a fantastic release of insincere sincerity. A sentence that will be regretted for the rest of their sorry lives. In the flurry of quasi-coercive socialising and forced smiles, there is no telling what one will agree to: applying for a post in a society run by second years who regard themselves as red-carpet celebrities, going to Tru, and of course, living with people you will come to dislike.
What I’m driving at here is that at the University of York, we simply organise housing too early. It seems to me that in the first few months of habitation in these hallowed halls it is impossible to grasp the character development of your ‘friends’ necessary for a year’s worth of co-occupancy. Yes, Jack McGraw seemed friendly enough, but as soon as his room full of Nazi-paraphernalia made itself known, your relationship became somewhat complex. And what about that Alice Pleasant? She seemed nice, didn’t she? Until she got out her medieval re-enactment chain- mail and her axe. That cursed axe. And then you woke up one day and thought “Shit. I’m living with a Nazi and a Knight” (I understand this might not have happened to everyone, by the way).
Where York fails, other universities have succeeded. For example, at the University of Edinburgh, housing is organised in the summer term and over summer itself. I feel that the space of time between the winter and the summer terms produces a greater understanding between people; a more wholesome knowledge which can filter the classics from the one-hit wonders: Mozart from N-Dubz (admittedly Dappy’s contribution to Tinchy Stryder’s ‘Number One’ is classic).
During my short time at York I have had the privilege of visiting a variety of second-year housing. I can safely say that not one of them deserves the adjective ‘functional’. Common features of such households are the resident isolationist who does not leave his/her room, or the non-resident who can’t get far enough away from the homestead. These people gain their daily sustenance from the comforting knowledge that they are moving for their third years; a communal knowledge which undermines any remaining remnants of cohesion. The third year houses I have entered are, in comparison, shining examples of community. The combination of being genuine friends with your housemates and bonding over anecdotes of what malcontents you lived with the previous year yields a greater happiness.
So are we to conclude that our last year is the key? Is our second year merely a crucial character-building exercise which is part of a universal curriculum? The answer is no. It does not take the erection of a roof over you and your friends’ heads to reveal true character facets. Epiphanies of hatred and irritation readily crop up at the end of the first year. The solution seems simple. I am not asking for much. No ‘character-building’ weekends away where we close our eyes and let our prospective housemates catch us. No team of psychoanalysts to test our compatibility. Just time. Give us more time. If not, then give us a room in Hes East. I hear it’s going to be fantastic.
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“Common features of such households are the resident isolationist who does not leave his/her room, or the non-resident who can’t get far enough away from the homestead. These people gain their daily sustenance from the comforting knowledge that they are moving for their third years; a communal knowledge which undermines any remaining remnants of cohesion. The third year houses I have entered are, in comparison, shining examples of community. The combination of being genuine friends with your housemates and bonding over anecdotes of what malcontents you lived with the previous year yields a greater happiness.”
I could not have summed up my own experience better myself. I was the stay-away and deserter of my 2nd-year household, and did indeed spend my 3rd year with some great mates, reminiscing about (and learning from) my mistakes. Our second year maybe isn’t supposed to be “merely a crucial character-building exercise”, but that’s how mine turned out and, in the long run, I’ll be all the better for it.
I’d like to assail the premise of not having enough halls. In olden days, there were plenty of halls, with dining halls, cleaners and porters attached.
This was the college system, and it prepared a comfortable physical environment for students to excel themselves in academic and other pursuits.
Unfortunately, the emphasis has shifted from this pleasant physical environment which supports learning to quite another. The change occurred slowly and over a long period of time.
As it is, Students play the role of supporting the ranks of the semi-professional landlord who has purchased (with debt) former council houses or recently constructed credit-boom properties and is probably servicing their loans to (recently nationalised) financial institutions.
The privatisation of natural monopolies to provide utilities (such as water, electricity, Internet) has also added to the distractions for should-be students. These utilities are become reliable cash-machines for capitalists in straightened times due to their boring regularity of income.
The University could create a study environment that advantages its students by removing these stressors of non-academic origin.
The difficulties caused by the decline of Halls are brushed under the carpet by the practice of giving International student’s priority. According to UK legislation, this discrimination in relation to the provision of housing services on the grounds of nationality is a faux pas. The argument to support International students also applies to home students because both are students. And students are people who should be focused on their studies – rather than fraught and novel interactions to secure the basic needs of housing, warmth, friendly neighbours.
That said, the `trial by fire’ of interacting with for-profit providers of basic-need services tempers students and contributes to the broadening of their horizons: a noble goal for Universities.
“The difficulties caused by the decline of Halls are brushed under the carpet by the practice of giving International student’s priority.”
A small correction Niall: only overseas (i.e. non-EU) students are given priority, not all international students. Students who come from within the European Union are always treated as home students, with whatever this may entail.
(This is often quite problematic. For example, consider the university’s Rent Guarantee Scheme. This exists because most foreign students are not expected to have a relative in the UK who can sign as their rent guarantor. For some strange reason, however, the university’s Rent Guarantee Scheme only applies to overseas students. This leaves EU students into a rather disadvantaged position. Most of them will also not have relatives in the UK, but it is up to the landlord to decide whether non-UK citizens can be their guarantors. In many cases, this has created problems. Additionally, college storage facilities are not offered to EU students, on the grounds that they are home students – only the ISA helps them with that.)
“discrimination in relation to the provision of housing services on the grounds of nationality is a faux pas. The argument to support International students also applies to home students because both are students.”
There is a reason why this takes place. First of all, as I’ve already explained, there is the issue with rent guarantors. On the one hand, international students can face serious problems because of that, so they need some kind of help from the university. On the other hand, the university would not want to take the risk of guaranteeing the rents of all international students. Offering them campus accommodation is a good compromise. This way, students can avoid all this hassle and the university is not taking a considerable financial risk.
There is a counfounding collection of labels for degrees of foreigness: English, British, UK, commonwealth (UK dependencies, crown colonies, republics, old and new realms of other types), european and foreign proper. One may also use the label overseas, and there’s much overlap. Regarding this subject, John Lennon extolled imagination for salvation.
I identify the lack of University student housing as the root of the problem because if this root was removed, it would resolve all student accommodation issues (not issuing from the poor conduct of the student themselves) and prevent their reoccurance.
This uprooting approach does not necessarily appear as a direct solution to the different manifestations of the problem. So it may seem counter intuitive.
Students are pressured to organise housing early by the landlords who want to take those deposits as early as possible and go out spending. A landlord with 30 or so properties in York (and there are quite a few of those) could take in £30,000 in deposits (before deposit protection schemes became law) and a further £36,000 in first months’ rent and use that as a deposit on another house purchase which could be bought in time to be made ready and rented later in the same academic year. Getting tenants fixed sooner rather than later helps these semi-professional landlords keep a self-propagating portfolio of student houses. Good for investors, bad for students.
The pressure is manifested by the fear of being left with rubbish houses unless the students organise themselves early. Sinclair are particularly keen to further this myth and use the fear to their advantage. *
If the goal is to increase ones outstanding mortgage burden as a consequence of acquiring more properties, then it has the appearance of an unstable debt bomb.
For when a sizable majority of the participants in the national economic game play this same strategy, then interest rates are bound to increase to shake loose the houses from the inefficient and parasitic semi-professional landlord class.
We’d better hope the counter strategy of tax payers buying the bankrupt mortgage lenders, such as Northern Rock, doesn’t lead to a lose-lose outcome!
complete jargon