A Peek Inside a UEA Dorm Room

I spent my year abroad at the University of East Anglia, or UEA for short. UEA offers both on-campus and off-campus student accommodations. Some of the on-campus housing blocks are much like the dorms/suites you'd find in college campuses in the US: a number of rooms per hall and a shared bathroom. Others differ in one main (and exciting!) aspect: each room is en-suite, meaning you have your own bathroom. After living in the dorms my first two years of college and sharing co-ed bathrooms with sometimes-not-so-considerate hallmates, this was probably the most enticing part of UEA's housing for me. The flat's kitchen was exciting as well. I chose to live at an off-campus site called the Village, which is about a 10-15 minute walk from campus and has en-suite bathrooms. I wanted to experience of living off-campus but not have to take the bus to school. One of the disadvantages of the Village though, is that many exchange students choose to live there, which means you don't get to mingle with the British students as much. The following are pictures of the Village from when I stayed there so you have can a view of what your housing may look like. I took these photos in the middle of unpacking (i.e., don't judge me for the messiness):

The room itself was tiny. I could stand next to my bed and take one step to stand in front of my desk. But it probably wasn't that much smaller than my single dorm room at home when I really think about it.

The closet. Can you tell from the lack of warm clothing (minus a wool coat) that I was unprepared for an English winter?

The bathroom or "pod." The bathrooms in the Village consist of a toilet, sink, and shower rolled up into one. You can't see the showerhead behind the curtain on the left in this picture. Basically, the whole pod is made up of waterproof material that is a little hard to define. Picture a plastic bathtub stood upright against a wall and given a door. One family member described it as a Star Trek bathroom. As mentioned earlier, I was tired of sharing a bathroom, so this unconventional one was good enough for me.

I don't have a picture of the outer part of my accommodation, which was nothing too exciting anyway. Instead here's a picture of some of the more architectural halls on-campus, referred to as the Ziggurats.

Question:

What are you looking for in terms of housing for your time in the UK? Or, if you've already studied abroad, what were the pros/cons of where you lived?

-L.