I may or may not know what I'm doing.
2020-09-06
Note: Housing, residence, meal plan, living, landlord, roommate, packing, what to bring.
This is part of a 3-part series on preparation for first year at the University of Waterloo. In this series, I cover student housing, courses, and other administrative tasks. I will refer to the incoming student as “you”.
Today’s topic will be on student housing. After accepting and satisfying UW’s conditional offer of admission, you will need some place to live. I will discuss two options: on-campus and off-campus, and the advantages and disadvantages of both.
On-campus residence requires a $500 deposit, which will be deducted from your final residence fee. You will have the chance to rank your choice of residence, and mention roommates you would like to room with. UW charges 4 months upfront.
The advantages of residence are:
The disadvantages of residence are:
For first year residence, the terms are as follows:
When the meal plan is required, less than half the money you actually paid ends up on your WatCard. You then get a 50% discount which expires after your first year of residence (typically end of 1B for both streams). It’s literally as expensive as takeout but you’re locked into it and it’s cafeteria food. Personally I found the food alright even though it was overpriced.
There are three groups of residence buildings:
Additionally, there are the college residences such as St. Jerome’s.
Confusingly, UWP refers to two locations:
UW Place (the group) is closest to the engineering buildings (and E7 in particular for ECE students). V1, REV, MKV is not too bad (a bit of extra walk but closer to MC which may be of interest to math students). CLV is far and mostly caters to upper years and grad students (particularly those with families). The college residences are also far but pretty good from what I hear.
I lived in CMH, which is the most modern residence in UW Place (the group) so it was pretty nice and it has air conditioning (excellent for the summer). However, it requires a meal plan.
Off-campus housing can be found through sites such as Facebook groups and Kijiji. However, demand for housing is very high in the fall term, and so 4-month sublets will be very expensive and disappear immediately. One-year leases are easier to sign for fall term, but have to be done several months in advance (I signed my lease at the end of January for September). Otherwise advertisements for sublets start a couple of months before the start of the next term as students get co-op offers.
Make sure to know your tenant legal rights as some landlords overstep their bounds (massive deposits, failure to provide maintenance, cleaning fees). The UW subreddit has a guide to off-campus housing but it is a bit out of date. You can also search for posts of previous students’ landlords.
The advantages are:
The disadvantages are:
Here is a list of landlords that aren’t complete scum:
Independent landlords are hit and miss.
Remember that travel distance and time will be affected by external conditions, like weather (especially during the winter). Typically travel time is longer because of road crossings, stairs/elevators (to get out of room, and up to classrooms), traffic, getting mugged by geese at gunpoint, avoiding geese crap landmines, watching someone get murdered by the geese (because they couldn’t afford the “protection fees”), and you’ll probably be carrying a bag (that will be stolen by geese).
For real, geese are super used to humans and usually docile, you can walk within a metre of them and they just watch (unless it’s spring in which case they get are extremely aggressive). Geese will hiss at you but they’re actually pretty harmless.
In general, the area around campus and uptown Waterloo is very walkable. Plus, your WatCard is also your bus pass (for which you pay a discounted amount for the term as part of your fees). A bicycle is also a good way to travel and get exercise, although there is the possibility of it getting stolen. A solution to this is to have a bicycle that’s crappier than all the others around yours, or to keep it in your room (which may or may not work depending on space and/or staff catching you if it’s not allowed). CMH does have a WatCard-accessed bicycle storage room, accessible from the side of the building.
I personally had my bicycle stolen, so I ended up getting two locks and applying the above.
Here is a possible list of things to bring. It is not exhaustive. Omit or include extra items at your own discretion. Also, if you forget to bring something, you can always have it shipped/buy it later. You can also use UW’s packing list as a guide.
“It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”
TODO UPDATE WITH PREVIOUS PACKING LISTS
You probably won’t need a printer since there are plenty on campus and printing with your WatCard is cheap. If you do bring a printer make sure you can connect to it through a USB cable or Bluetooth as eduroam (the UW wifi network) will not allow wireless printing.
As usual, for both on-campus and off-campus, you will most likely have to deal with roommates, and there is a possibility of getting bad ones. Clear communication is an important factor in maintaining house harmony.
The important information to take away is that there are advantages and disadvantages to both on-campus and off-campus housing. You must decide which of the advantages and disadvantages are more important, and find, if not ideal, an acceptable location to live. However, student housing is not the only part of first year preparation. I will discuss the next topic in the next post.
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