Ayfra

As an international student, arriving at Loughborough was a BIG change. It was my first time visiting the UK and there I was arriving completely alone. I remember stepping off the coach that picked us up from Heathrow Airport and the first people I met were the Cayley sub wardens. They helped me with my luggage and welcomed me to my new home; I instantly received the support I really needed.

Throughout my first year it was always nice to know there were people who wanted to help me. The wardens always made extra effort to see how I was settling in. I remember one of the events in Cayley was the international meet and greet - this was the evening I met my closest friends, we still laugh and talk about it to this day.

Moving into second and third year I knew that I still wanted all the benefits of living in halls. I wanted the convenience of being on campus and the feeling of safety. Being in the centre of everything, having a hall community around me and best of all…rolling out of bed and getting to a lecture in 5 minutes.

Filling out my application was easy and I was relieved that I knew exactly where I would be staying. Some of my friends did decide to live off campus and were shocked by the amount of research they had to do to find the right accommodation to suit their needs.

If someone asks me why I stayed in halls for all 3 years of my undergraduate studies, I tell them it’s because there is an accommodation type suited to every student out there. You don’t want to cook? Return to a catered hall. Want to improve your cooking skills? Live in a self-catered hall. Living in halls, with a catering team and cleaning team to look after me, made the student experience much more manageable when the workload increased in second and third year and I wanted to avoid any additional stress.

I guess the reason I stayed in halls was because it was exactly what I was looking for when I came to university, and remained the best choice for me.