Posted on Fri 15 Aug 2014 at 12:45 by
Tommy Parker
Firstly CONGRATULATIONS! You survived A-Levels and got into one of the best universities in the country. Not only is the university top in student satisfaction [1] and in the top 10 of all major league tables [2] but also your new Students’ Union is one of the best, and we hold a plethora (love that word) of awards[3] and accolades such as:
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In the top 10 for student satisfaction [1]
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NUS Equality and Diversity Award
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Best Bar None
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Investors in Diversity / Investors in Volunteering / Investors in people
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Gold Students Union Evaluation Initiative
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Winner of the Education and Young Volunteer team awards and multiple nominations and special commendations at the Bath and North East Somerset chairman’s awards [4]
So you know, you are going to be a part of a brilliant Students’ Union that offers so much, from sports clubs to societies to volunteering to enterprise to campaigns to club nights to fresher’s week and everything in between.
Now you have gotten into bath, the next worry is probably accommodation. Now if you had bath as your first choice and submitted your application for accommodation before the deadline you will be guaranteed accommodation in halls. You should be hearing from the accommodation office sometime soon, which will be in the next couple of weeks. Now when they allocate your room they probably will give you something strange like Woodland 4A1.02, and you will probably think WHAT? So hears the breakdown.
The first number signifies the FLOOR you are on, easy. Typically the letter signifies the BLOCK you are in, in this case woodland block A. Some have strange variations like SB which is Solsbury block B, or even stranger Westwood R (Quarry) or Westwood T (Cotswold). The next number signifies the FLAT you are in, some floors have multiple flats. The last number after the decimal point is the ROOM you are in. So to take our example from above that would be floor 4, block A, flat 1, room 02. There are some buildings that don’t follow this (Eastwood I’m looking at you) but it’s all very similar, so E33.13 is Eastwood, building 33, room 13 (as Eastwood is little houses as opposed to flats).
So hopefully this all makes sense to you now. Once you have your accommodation you should join your halls Facebook group to meet new hall/flat mates. Everyone is in the same boat when they start university; no-one knows anyone, so it’s good to network as much as possible! You can find your halls groups from here: http://www.bathstudent.com/halls/thehalls/
And lastly there will be a few of you without accommodation because you came up through clearing or similar and so aren’t guaranteed accommodation and are on the waiting list but don’t panic, finding houses is EASY! The accommodation office (alongside the SU) runs a house hunting day for you to find people and go and find a nice private house for you to stay in. We will help you every step of the way, from transport to contract checking to even finding the houses themselves, so don’t worry and you will be fine. Remember if you have any first year private housing concerns contact me (sucommunity@bath.ac.uk), the advice and representation team (suadvice@bath.ac.uk) or the accommodation office (http://www.bath.ac.uk/accommodation/contactus/index.html ). The event will be on Wednesday the 10th of September with free accommodation supplied over the couple of days. Information can be found here: http://www.bath.ac.uk/study/ug/accommodation/can-I-apply/index.html
So congratulations again and hope you are getting excited about fresher’s week! Remember you can only buy the official SU Fresher’s Week wristbands on www.bathstudent.com/freshers after you register online (ROL) for university and are enrolled on our system. The wristbands will be sold at the beginning of September so make sure you get one as its first come first serve! It’s going to an absolute cracker of a week with multiple stages, acts and events with fantastic variety to suit all needs, so make sure you don’t miss out and buy a wristband in September!
Remember to also add me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bathsucommunity
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BathSUCommunity
And I look forward to meeting you all in September!
Tommy Parker, Community Officer
[1] http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2014/08/12/number-1-in-nss/
[2] http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings
http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2014/jun/02/university-league-tables-2015-the-complete-list
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/University_Guide/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_of_universities_in_the_United_Kingdom
[3] http://www.bathstudent.com/your-union/all-about-your-union/awards/
[4] http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/your-council-and-democracy/chairman-council/chairmans-community-and-business-awards-2013