Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
It's been about seven months now that I had made this York city as my second home. My experience may not value as much as the older students or even the postgraduates but I just would like to share my experience living here in York for now.
I remembered how I first set my eyes upon this small city. It really is beautiful compared to other cities in England as it had preserved its old buildings. The people are friendly and will always lend a helping hand when you asked them.
I stayed in a four-bedroom house, shared with my three other housemates. Three of them are my classmates back in KMS and another one is from INTECH whom we met through mutual friend. Particularly for my house, the rent is different according to rooms. The two smallest bedrooms are the cheapest, with GBP 350 per month. My bedroom is the second biggest and I paid GBP 380 per month while the largest bedroom in our house is the most expensive with GBP 410 per month. These only include the water bill and not the internet or gas bill. Basically our house is pretty expensive for students as you can get around GBP 280 - GBP 300 per month in York. Relative to other cities, York's house rent is a bit more expensive.
But although our house is expensive, it is pretty close to the university. Walking to my Chemistry department took about 15 - 20 minutes walk while my housemates who took Biotechnology only needs about 5 minutes walk. There are students that cycle to the uni and I had always wanted to but never got the opportunity to buy one.
For Chemistry, we will have a full lab day every Monday from 9 am to 4 pm. They are really strict about lab safety so you are not allowed to be in the lab without lab coat, googles and rubber gloves which are provided for the students for free. We are also given our own workspace (which are shared with another student who has their lab on another day) so the students does not have to share the apparatus and materials, unlike my KMS days.
Lectures vary from term to term. I usually will have a free day on Tuesday, lectures for Wednesday and Thursday are from 9 am to 12 pm while Friday is our full lecture day as our lectures last from 10 am to 4 pm. The schedule changes every now and then as sometimes lectures are cancelled and such. Apart from that, Chemistry students are divided into colleges for tutorials for specific subjects are conducted. Usually there are about 20 to 25 students for every college and the name of my college is Woodward College. In every college, the students are further divided into tutorial groups, composed of 4 - 5 peoples which will have tutorials with a lecturer for almost every week for different subjects.
My tutorial group is pretty diverse as we have a student from Lithuania, another from Pakistan, and two other students are English, apart from me, a Malaysian.
Lunch break is usually from 1 pm to 2 pm. Namys (my housemate and coursemate) and I usually will head to the prayer room where we will have our Zohor prayer and lunch. There are several prayer rooms provided in the university which made life easier for us as the biggest prayer room is two blocks away from Chemistry department.
There is Malaysian Society for Malaysian students in the uni which provides opportunity for us to mingle with other Malaysians. Since our number is pretty small, we are a bit tight-knit community and know each other pretty well.
I might write more on another topic about living in York next time!
