Hi everyone!
Back on the lockdown series…
In my last blog post, I talked about the placement application process and traveling to attend interviews. The next step I took after securing a placement internship, was to move out of campus.
By the time I was doing this, I had already completed all my second-year exams, and I had come to the end of my accommodation lease at the university’s student halls. At this point, I was ready to begin my life on placement.
In the musical words of Janet Jackson, “… don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”; there were several perks of living on campus that I only came to learn after I had to move out.
Firstly, you don’t need a guarantor to live on campus. A guarantor is simply a person who agrees to pay your rent if you become unable to do so. Although I do not intend to default on my rent, landlords often have this requirement as a security, especially if their tenant is an individual without a long history of such transactions i.e. a university student, like myself. In order to bypass this hurdle, landlords can ask you to pay a certain bulk of rent in advance, or alternatively prove (with a reference from your placement employer) that you would be able to cover the rent for the lease period in its entirety.
Secondly, whilst living on campus, the bills for all your utilities are included with your rent payment to a single party, the university. When you move out of campus, you often find that you source different utilities from multiple parties. It takes a certain level of organisation to deal with all these transactions, and it is something I had to prepare for in advance. On campus, I did not worry about which internet provider was the fastest because the university WiFi was generally quite fast. Now, a common search item on my phone is “run internet speed test”.
The list of cons of living off-campus can go on and on, but all that aside, I was excited to move out of campus because of the ultimate sense of independence. Moving out really put my life into perspective for me, and it became easier for me to prepare my mindset for life after university.
I decided to move to Reading. There were several reasons I settled on this place, but the main two were: the cost of living and, the proximity to my place of work. Of course, now, I am not really benefitting from the latter because I am working from home, but soon, I am enthusiastic that we will indeed be returning to the workplace, all in good time. Fortunately, I also came to find out that Reading is a really beautiful town. The pictures shared below are from my frolics around the town:
Hoping and praying that everyone remains safe during this time.
That’s all for now folks,
Best,
Anne
