My Student Experience of a Glasney Shared Room

In this vlog, third year student Bex reflects on her experience of living in a shared room in Glasney during her first year.

"Hey, my name is Bex and I am a third year Falmouth University student and I am studying Fashion Styling and Art Direction. So, I'm just here to give you a little bit of advice and speak you through the benefits of having a shared room in Glasney."

"In my first year I was allocated a shared room and in my case I shared with a girl who was on Fashion Photography, and in my modules it's very important to collaborate and this is the case throughout all of Falmouth. Collaboration is encouraged across different courses, different facilities and faculties, it's very much encouraged. It's all about who you know!"

"So, having a roommate, especially one who had a similar course to me was extremely helpful. She could help photograph my work, we could work together on projects and even if she wasn't necessarily the right person for me to work with, she could show me a whole range of other people that would be more suited to my work, which was great."

"It also was a really good way to meet more friends, because obviously we had our flat, so there were nine of us in our case in our flat and we had another shared room with two boys next door to mine and Wizzy's room, and so we had our own friends and also the flat. But then also we could mix in each other's groups. She'd meet a lot of my friends and vice versa, which is really nice."

"It's very comforting to have that, because when you move away from home it can feel a bit daunting. You are on your own, which could be scary because you're used to having people around you all the time, but that fear does go very quickly. You meet people within a few hours or days of being there. The friendships have formed very fast, but having someone there did take the anxiety away from moving in straight away. You have instantly got someone there for you which is really, really nice and comforting."

"I'll talk a little bit about the rooms themselves: you've got two beds and these beds flip into desks, so you're not losing any storage or space by having the beds. And there are two wardrobes, so one per person - you don't have to give up any of your wardrobe or cupboard space by having a shared room. You still get your own wardrobe, and your shelves and your cupboards."

"The only thing you do share is the bathroom, which is fine, Most of the time you don't need to be in there at the same time; you have lectures at different times, so that's fine. You might have to fight over the shower once in a while, but that's the case when you leave Glasney anyway and move into your second and third year houses! And in our case I can't actually remember a time which that happened, so I was very lucky."

"You do get into a routine after a while; you learn when each other's lectures are and you'll think 'oh I know they have a 9:00 am, so I'll have a shower a little bit later because I have to go until 11' and vice versa. It is something you just understand after a while."

"I'm really, really grateful for having a shared room. I think it taught me a lot of responsibility; it taught me to keep my space a bit tidier because I'm not always the tidiest person! You learn a lot of respect for having people around you and also when times were a bit tough and I did feel a bit sad or a bit homesick, I had someone there who was able to help me. Even if I didn't have the courage to reach out because you spend so much time together, she was able to understand when I was feeling like this and reach out and help me, which was really, really nice. And it's always a benefit to have someone to come home and gossip to after a night out as well! One of my favourite things to do was coming home and just giving her a full debrief of everything that had happened and it was really lovely, I did enjoy it."

"Obviously there are times where it can be a bit more rough and everything. Personally, I didn't fall out with my roommate, I didn't have any arguments, we got on very well but if that is the case you've got your whole flat; you've got eight or nine other people and you're never alone if that makes sense. You've always got people around you and I just think it can bring about more opportunities and I would definitely say give it a chance."

"In a lot of people's cases, you can get the option to move into a single room if you are in a shared room and not enjoying it, but I didn't take this option personally. I really, really enjoyed my experience in the shared room and it's something that I wanted to continue with throughout the entire year, because I'd gotten so close to my roommate and my housemates. It just didn't seem worth it to move everything into another flat and start from scratch. I just really wanted to stay in the bubble of friends that I'd made; the friends you make in the first week, your flatmates, they're people that will be with you for the rest of uni. Those connections are really, really important and the friendships are really valuable."

"So, I would definitely recommend that you give it a try because you might make a new best friend, who knows? It could be worth it! Thank you for listening to my little gossip and chat about shared rooms. I hope this has encouraged you to give it a go or to just be a little bit less scared going into it, because I promise, it's not that scary!"

"I hope you all have a great time at Falmouth - yay!"

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