So if you've been reading my blog for a while or you just happen to be lucky enough to know me well, you'll know that I went to university in Lincoln in 2016, dropped out, and then after a lot of soul searching and trying to decide what I was -actually- good at, I decided to have another go at the whole uni thing in 2017 at Sheffield Hallam.
Honestly, I'm so glad that I didn't stay at Lincoln, I've got nothing against the uni, it was the one I chose originally and I still love the campus, I have friends who go there and love it, but I'm so happy I didn't stay on a course that wasn't right for me.
I was originally going to study fine art, as I've always been very arty and creative and I've always known I wanted to go into a creative field, however at the time of choosing the course I had no career ideas other than that I wanted something creative. I think fine art as a course was just a bit too broad for me, once I was there it didn't feel like it was something I wanted to do but something I'd picked at default, I wasn't excited to do it. Sure I loved art, and still do, but I feel that taking that time out and finding my bearings really helped me to decide what career path I actually wanted to go down. In the end I chose graphic design, I knew I wanted to do that course before I'd even thought about applying for the Sheffield, I wanted something closer to home and Sheffield was a great fit, but mainly I cared more about picking the right course than what the uni was like as a whole.
So on to the actual point of this blog post, when it got around to picking accommodation I wanted somewhere that would be big enough to be interesting but not so big that it wouldn't feel homely. I weighed up a lot of different options and went and looked around a few different options for accommodation. I ended up choosing 'Exchange Works' which is uni accommodation provided by Unite Students, who run most of the bigger accom buildings in Sheff centre.
Now I had my fair share of shit times staying at Exchange Works, my flat mates didn’t get on and it felt incredibly tense all the time in our flat, but I guess that’s just luck of the draw when your staying in randomly assigned student accommodation with strangers. I’m not going to sugar coat it but I had the worst year staying in that flat, it gave me really bad anxiety whenever I was there, and overall I’m really glad I’m not staying there anymore, but I don’t want to let my bad times overshadow this review because hey it’s not Unite Students’ fault that we didn’t get on. So to make sure I’m being fair I want to create a little scoring system for this review. I’ve separated my review into 5 sections; Room Quality, Safety, Social, Cleanliness, and Location - all of these will be given a rating out of 5, and I’ll talk a bit about how I decided on that score.
So firstly I want to talk about location. I gave the location of Exchange Works 5/5 stars because it’s close to just about everything in Sheffield. Of course it depends what campus you’re at, at Sheffield Hallam there’s City campus which is located in the centre of the city near Millennium Galleries, and then Collegiate campus which is a bit further out of town in a more rural area.
Exchange Works is located right within a two minute walk of city campus, it’s a street away from the Students Union, and it’s close enough to all the main pubs and clubs that it’s unlikely you’ll even need a taxi home.
For room quality I gave Exchange Works 3 stars. You can choose from a few different styles of rooms that vary in price, there’s a regular room that includes en-suite bathroom (which is what I chose), as well as a larger room which also includes an en-suite but the actual bedroom area is a bit larger, and finally there’s a studio which includes its own kitchen and bathroom.
My room was alright, it wasn’t amazing. There were a lot of patches of missing paint on the walls, and even though I’d told maintenance it was something that was never followed up on so I just left it after making sure I’d took lots of pictures so I didn’t loose my deposit.
The heating in my room was a bit disappointing, it was a small radiator under the window that you pressed a button to turn on/up and then off/down. It was a bit tempermental and tended to shut off after around 10-15 minutes, obviously this made it freezing in the winter especially at night when you couldn’t keep getting up to turn it back on. I ended up getting a bad cold and having to go home to my mums in the winter because of the heating being so bad.
There were good points too though, there’s a lot of storage in the rooms. There’s a large shelving unit above the bed, the bed itself also lifts up for suitcase storage under the mattress. As well as this there’s a desk with three draws, and a small unit with a few draws also. The wardrobe is not badly sized, with a top shelf and bottom shelf for shoes or scarves etc.
The water was always warm whenever I wanted to use it, and all the bills were included in the price of the room which was a weight off my mind.
For cleanliness I have Exchange Works 2 stars. I had a few issues with exchange Works over a couple of things. Firstly, when I moved in I found I had silverfish in my bathroom due to the bad ventilation, no windows. Silverfish are a little bug that like the damp, and tend to move about at night. I hated them! I got such bad anxiety over the horrible little bugs and dreaded having to use my bathroom. I ended up having to buy a small dehumidifier from Argos to sit in my bathroom, as well as getting some silverfish killer spray that you sprayed around your bathroom to keep silverfish away.
As much as I reported this to reception there wasn’t really anything done, it seemed like a few people also had the same issue and they came around to spray something down the drains in the showers but it didn’t really seem to make a difference for my flat mates.
Generally the common areas were kept clean, you regularly bumped into the friendly cleaners on the stairs in the mornings. A few times over the weekends there would be some gross things on the shared stairways, cheesy chips or vomit, spilled drinks, some lovely sights. I do feel sorry for the cleaners having to deal with that on a regular basis.
As for safety, I gave Exchange Works two stars, as there were a couple of incidents that I didn’t really enjoy and I feel they could do with avoiding in the future.
So when I first moved in, I had a few problems with my keycard. This always gives me anxiety because I hate how easy it is to get trapped in student accommodation if your keycard isn’t working, I had the same thing happen to me in Lincoln and got locked outside in the rain for hours. On the plus side for exchange Works, it’s easier to get out than in. Just.
There were a few times when the main front door (which is an automatic sliding door with keycard sensor) stopped working as was just left open for anyone to get in.
One time I was dropped off by my boyfriend fairly late at night and the front door was broken again, it didn’t require the keycard to enter, it was just open to anyone in the street.
When I got to the courtyard area in the centre of the accomodation there were a group of older boys/men stood in the corner near the entrance to my stairs (which needed a keycard but was regularly left propped open by students on nights out). When I walked past they started shouting something at me in a language I didn’t know and I ran up the stairs to my flat with them following me a few flights below. Luckily the flat doors required keycard access, as well as individual bedrooms, so they couldn’t follow me into my flat.
A few girls reported similar things the same night in a Facebook chat for exchange Works, and I really didn’t feel comfortable staying there anymore. Luckily it was near the end of the year and I hadn’t long left on the tenancy.
For the social aspect of exchange Works I’d really not be the best person to ask, I don’t drink, and also I didn’t really stay in the accomodation much, when I visited friends it was elsewhere, I didn’t know many people in the accomodation other than my flat mates and a few course friends. I’ve given Exchange Works 4 stars because it’s clearly one of the most popular accommodation choices for Sheffield Hallam, along with the Forge and Leadmill. It was always very lively at night, sometimes a bit too loud when it echoes in the courtyard centre, and there were always people out and about in the communal areas at any time of day.
It’s always good to join Facebook groups and group chats for your accomodation just so you can be in on what’s going on. A couple of times fireworks were let off inside the courtyard illegally, and it was good to immediately find out what it was, especially in the middle of the night.
Unite students as a company are quite good with giving you regular emails about updates or notices about the accomodation, as well as having a really good app that allows you to get notifications when you’ve got mail, or allows you to send anonymous noise complaints that will be dealt with by security at night. It also allows you to notify maintenance of a problem, as well as have a group chat with your flat mates.
Overall, I’d say Exchange Works isn’t a bad choice for student accomodation at Sheffield Hallam. There’s a lot worse places you could find yourself at, and it really can become a home if you make it. The staff at Exchange Works were always really friendly and tried to help the best they could, other than the security guard who watched me carry all my boxes down the stairs when I moved out but didn’t offer to help..
If there’s any questions you have about Exchange Works feel free to comment below this post and I’ll answer them for you!
