Student accommodation – Sergio’s advice

Hello there, my name is Sergio Guevara, I am from Puebla in Mexico.  I studied a Bachelor of International Business at Griffith University in Brisbane. I moved to Australia 4 years ago when I was 18 years of age. I did not know anyone here but to my surprise Australians are one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met and that made my life so much easier.

I have lived in many places while in Australia so let me share my experience with you briefly…

Homestay

When I first arrived in the country I stayed at a homestay with a lovely old lady who showed me around the area, made me dinner and welcomed me to Australia. In the meantime I was making friends at uni and enjoying myself.

Share house

Later on I moved to share house near the university to make my life easier in terms transportation and time spent travelling. Living in a share house could be nice because you get to know more people but it could also be quite risky if the roommates are not clean or weird. So after six months in the share house I knew people so I rented a furnished house with two other friends and lived there for a whole year.

The benefits of living in your own place are great, I mean you know the people you are living with, have your own space, you can organise BBQs if the weather is nice and hot. However you have to consider the costs of living. Once every three months the electricity bill will come and once a month the internet bill arrives as well. These are important things to keep in mind when deciding where to live.

On campus accommodation

After a good year of fun and studying at the share house I decided to move to on campus accommodation at Griffith Uni, Nathan campus. To be honest this was the best decision I made. Living on campus was a fantastic experience because you get to know many people, not only Aussies but many other international people who live on campus too. If you are looking for a social life and at the same time being able to have a space to focus and study then on campus accommodation is the place to be. As everything it has its pros and cons. Pros: making friends is so easy, great times with your flat mates, great events, going to class or studying at the library becomes really convenient because you only have to cross the road.

Cons: too many people sharing the same flat, it could be messy and noisy and most of the time the washing machines will be busy when you want to do laundry.

I do however recommend living on campus for the first year of university because that will help you get around, make friends and not feel alone. Then you could either stay there or move to another sort of accommodation, whatever tickles your fancy.

For more information on types of accommodation, check out the Griffith accommodation site. And if you’re going to be renting a property make sure you read about your rights and responsibilities as a tenant on the Residential Tenancies Authority website.

Happy house hunting!

– Sergio