Postgrad residence hall vs. the young'ns hall... any real difference?

I just got my acceptance letter to study at Central Saint Martins, amongst the rush of things I have to do now (just found out I've got a month to get my loan squared away... yikes!) I've been thinking about housing.

I'm going to be living on campus and was trying to figure out where to stay.  I'm in a MA programme, and they actually have a residence hall specifically set aside for postgrad students.

Has anyone had any experience with different kinds of residence halls? I'm the ripe old age of 25 so it's not like I'm that far off, but I was just curious to know if anyone has really experienced difference between a postgrad specific hall and the regular one?

I went to undergrad in nowheresville Tennessee, and I don't think we actually had separate halls set aside, just not something I have experienced.... mostly just curious for opinions.

Thanks!

Yes, there is likely a difference. At least there was when I did it at Reading Uni about 10 years ago.

The undergrad halls there were party central, the postgrad (or mature student halls as they are also called) were less of a party atmosphere (though not entirely!). There also tended to be more foreign students in them and those students were often more, well, studious.

Bearing in mind that you are 25, you won't be that far off the age of most UK postgrads. I found the foreign students tended to be older. Bear in mind UK undergrads will be in their late teens. There's a big difference between that and 25.

So, IMHO, I'd go for the postgrad option. YMMV.

I second what balmerhon says.

About 4 years ago I lived in undergrad accommodation in Manchester. It was always a party. I was 20, and the people I lived with were all somewhere between 18-21.  It made out great for me at that point in my life...but as a postgrad, I would never have the time (or energy) to keep up with the lifestyle of undergrads in the UK.

I would also choose the postgrad housing option. You'll probably meet people that you have more in common with, too. I've seen some uni accommodation that has their own mini kitchen/mini bathroom.  But if you have the option, I would go for a shared kitchen. It's much easier to meet people that way, and we even had cleaners who came in and tidied once a week!

Just a note that you may not get a choice to go in undergrad accommodation - most universities will only put first-year undergraduates in the undergraduate halls and no one else is able to live there. This is usually because of lack of space in the halls as they often have to guarantee accommodation for all first year undergrad students... when I started at university, there were about 10 people in my undergraduate hall who spent the first month sleeping on the common room floor because they didn't have enough rooms for everyone! There were about 200 people living in my hall and every single one of them was a first-year undergraduate (age 18-19).

Likewise, usually only postgraduate students will be put into postgraduate halls, so if you apply for a place in a hall, you may be assigned to either one of the postgrad halls or the halls reserved for international students if there are any.

I've studied in the US and the UK and lived in undergraduate residence halls in both countries:

UK halls
- 16 people on my floor (11 girls, 5 guys)
- 4 rooms were double rooms (2 people in each) and 8 rooms were single rooms... the students that had taken a gap year first were assigned the single rooms and the students who had come straight from high school (like me) were assigned the double rooms.
- the rooms had sinks in them
- 2 toilet cubicles for 16 people (one bathroom) - they were unisex so both the guys and the girls shared the two cubicles and anyone could go in at any time
- 1 shower
- 2 baths (although one of the baths was out of commission all year because one of the guys stored his rugby gear in there)
- 1 semi-kitchen (just a sink and a microwave)
- Everyone was friendly - we kept our doors open so we could socialise, we went out for meals and nights out together, we went down to dinner together in the evenings
- Lots of booze around and a few parties on the floor

US halls
- About 20 people on my floor. It was girls only as the guys all had to live on a different floor
- Mixture of single and double rooms
- Sinks in the rooms
- 4 toilet cubicles and 4 showers for the floor. Girls only. You needed a key to get into the bathroom
- Small kitchen on a different corridor (I never used it so I don't know what facilities it had)
- Everyone kept their doors shut, so I could go days or even weeks without seeing some of the girls I lived with
- No real socialising with the whole floor
- No booze, no parties (it was a dry campus and obviously there's the over-21 issue)
- We felt like we were treated like kids (I was 20 at the time) - 'free drinks' meant free Pepsi (in my UK uni, 'free drinks' meant we were going to have major hangovers the next day) and they even had a 'colouring competition' while I was there... the prize was a pizza party for the floor... except that because the floors were single-sex, it would have been a boys-only or a girls-only party!

My UK experience was different.  No mixed sex bathrooms, or mixed sex floors.  There were students of all years, although most were first and second years.  No bathtub in my wing, but there was one in the other building.

We had a full kitchen. I did love the sink in my room though.

We were treated more like "adults", for a while.  That meant they removed all the toilet paper from the bathrooms at the weekends because people used it to block all the toilets up and cover the bathroom with wet toilet paper (we negotiated a deal with the cleaners over that). 

Also, alcohol had to be banned in all public places because of the amount of money spent on replacing carpet and hiring cleaners to come in and clean up vomit.  They never replaced the felt on the snooker table and the company that ran the vending machine removed the glass front because it kept getting broken.

So, I'm not sure if adult is quite the right term for it. 

This was in Scotland though. 

I'm in a postgrad hall and am older than you. In fact most of the local students in my program anywayare older than me. My hall is all international students. We all have our own bathrooms and a shared kitchen for 6 people. Though I wish our building had more events like some others do and some green space would be nice. All we have is a parking lot, no place to sit outside. I don't mind it, have made lots of new friends.

If you don't mind being woken up by the fire alarm at 4am during finals because drunk teenagers are incapable of making post-nightclub toast, go for undergraduate halls.