Is there anyone here who studies or has studied at Cardiff University? I've got a place there for September and my accommodation guide got here this morning. I'm having a flick through it now but I wondered what halls to steer clear of, and which ones are decent, if anyone's lived in them. Any input would be much appreciated Sam
Well, my wife went to Cardiff - but that was 20-odd years ago, so I don't think she'd be able to offer much help Best thing you could do is go to Cardiff (do they have an open day, or has that already happened?) and talk to some of the students.
it be honest you can live in a hole, with cool flatmates and you'll have a great time, or you can live in smart halls with a bunch of w******s and it'll be hell on earth.... I would fret too much about it just pick what seems good from the prosectus and fingers crossed you don't end up in a flat full of idiots... And if you do just make friends with someone else and never spend any time at home... or get a transfer later in the term (the drop out rate in the first term at Uni is pretty high so there's usually a good chance of getting moved by christmas)
If you give me a list of areas ill tell you what they're like. I dont know what inside the halls are like, mind, but I know Cardiff pretty well. From what I can remember: Talibont (or however you spell it), isnt great, but it does have sports facilities on site and one of Europes largest Tescos about a 2 minute walk away. It's also virtually sat ON the Taff Trail if you wanna get some exercise on a saturday after spending a week in bed or something. There are some near the centre of town that are about a 5 minute walk from the centre and 10 minutes from the main uni.
I went to cardiff. I was in talybont north and it was superb. We had one of the buildings nearest the big tescos (It was opened two weeks before we arrived), its a great setup. Lots of sports facilities and the bar in the middle of the complex for cheap boozing. Only drawback for talybont is the walk to lectures , particularly if you are doing computer science of engineering. I went into most of the other halls and they werent nearly as good as talybont but it does depend on which bit of talybont your in, some of the buildings are quite old some are quite new. Ours had small bathrooms in each room where lets just say you can triple task the three S's
Christ small world I always used to stumble down there at 1 or 2 in the morning and buy silly stuff hehe. Glad the macdonalds opened after I left the halls or I would have been very fat by the end of the year hehe.
My twin sister was in Talybont South last year - pretty nice I though, modern, fairly well furnished, rooms and kitchens not massive but better than some uni halls of residences I'd seen. Seems a bit of a concrete jungle though when you're there, but the park and river is really close nearby. The aforementioned Tecos is absolutely massive! On the downside its quite a walk to and from the city centre from Talybont, so getting home when pissed feels like an effort, and depending on your department it can be a long walk to get to lectures. The union is on the road between Talybont and the city centre (North Road IIRC?) so its pretty easy to get to, and theres always something going on. Talybont North, whilst being on the same site, has much older rooms, in blocks which to me are somewhat reminiscent of 1960s council flats. Generally the condition of furnishings is poorer and I've heard bad things frankly - my sisters friend Elicia had a room there last year, and had leaking roof that resulted in a wrecked laptop and she also had a spider infestation The only other halls I can remember my sister mentioning were Victoria Halls, I believe her exact words describing them were 'posh as hell' but I think they're also very expensive to live in. If you want I'll ask my sister for some more info later.... EDIT: Theres a Talybont Court now, will have opened by now...seemed much the same as Talybont South from what I could tell when they were building it, closer to the main road though so noisier....
I got offered a place there too for this september on Comp Sci with Vis. Id be very interested on any more information on the halls there too.
Rather irrelevant, but we had someone from Cardiff uni come to our school the other day and give a presentation about the university and Cardiff in general Didn't sound too bad at all and could make it onto my shortlist of places to consider depending on how well they match my specific needs for the course I want to do. <A88>
Those are the girls only ones from memory Talybont north has a couple of newer bits towards tesco's its the bits nearer the middle that are the older bits (bit dingy from memory)
Thanks people for your input. I quite like the look of Talybont South, it seems to have everything that I'm looking for and it's pretty reasonable in terms of cost (£2436 for the standard residential period). It's en-suite too which is nice It also says that they're grouped into flats of 4 which can't be a bad thing. The other one which I'm fairly interested in is Aberconway Hall, the rooms look quite big and it's even cheaper (£2070). Anyone know if this place is decent or not? Sam
Colum Road, Cathays, CF10 3EJ. It's fairly close to the campus and as I said it looks quite spacious inside. Sam
Cathays is a pretty decent area and you cant really get closer to the centre of town then there. Its a stones throw away from the uni as well. If you look on maps.google and whack in the postcode you will see Cathays park - the uni is just around that area(ish), and st.davids centre is the main town centre area. You're quite close to the bay as well (20 minute walk is pretty nice). Adamstown is a *bit* rough but you'll be able to spot where to and not to go by the level of grafitti basically. If it looks alright, it generally is. Some people say Cathays can be rough but it's bark is worse than its bite. It's got a high asian and student population and they are generally mostly very nice people, Ive walked home numerous times at 0'clock in the morning and nothing has ever happened and had friends live there for years. Newport road, city road, albany road all have shops down if you head out of the centre. City road for curries and deep fried mars bars Albany Road and Victoria Road (in town) for Chippies. Victoria Road/St. Marys street for Nando's and the Pancake house!! Across the road is the prince of wales pub, if you can put up with the locals The other end of victora road is the cross n something pub... opposite toys r us, iirc, that's the gay one (just warning ya ). Down the same road opposite toys r us is spillers records! A must for supporting small record stores and you can pick up some rareaties in there. Another MUST is D'vinyl for rares! Or just the experience. That's all the way down just off by Albany Road/City Road 5 way junction though. Tenkaichi Japanese restuarant is down there and they have 20% off 12-2pm. Very nice Raman and Rice dishes, decent portions. Im not too familure with the other side of the taff. edit: iirc quite a few foreign students in the one near town.
My sister lives in a house in Cathays now, it certainly does 'look' a bit of a rough area but its not that bad at all, as Bindi says. As for the Prince of Wales pub, definitely one to be avoided after Cardiff City games (was in there last March and it was full of the most blatant yobbo football hooligans you can imagine...not a friendly atmosphere that time to say the least).
Talybont North Hi I'm supposed to live in Talybont North and was wondering if anyone could give me more informationor even a pic of a room there as I've heard that the accommodation is really old. It would be agreat help. Cheers
Confused Heya, i went to visit the accommodation(well some of it) about 2 weeks ago.It seemed to me that Talybont south was the skanky run down part and the north was the more modern one.But on here ppl r saying its the other way round.have i just got confused about which part is which becuase the north seemed really ncie to me?
Maybe people are getting confused. I know one of them is nasty and one of them is nice, but I couldnt tell you which off the top of my head.
