A Student's Guide to St Andrews

The final hall in my Accommodation Overview series is Andrew Melville Hall. Found on the North Haugh, is Andrew Melville Hall. It's one of the newer halls at St Andrews having being built in 1967 (most halls are a lot older) in the brutalist style with a nautical feel with porthole windows in the doors and staircases connected to a central walkway (not unlike on a ship). It was refurbished a couple of years ago to be a lot more modern inside than it used to be. Andrew Melville Hall was also featured in the film "Never Let Me Go" starring Keira Knightly. Former Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, also stayed in Andrew Melville Hall when he was a student at the university. It's location is ideal for any Science Students for the same reason as Uni Hall and ABH, and similarly, is a bit of an unfortunate location for Arts students. It's mere minutes walk from even the Physics building at the other end of the North Haugh and less to Chemistry or Computer Science bu

By far the closest hall to the Union is McIntosh Hall. The historic building used to be the Chattan Hotel but now plays home to over 200 students in the center of town. At Hall Committee training I found out that hall wardens have a taxi fund that pays for the taxi fee for any student that needs sent home (the student does need to pay it back), a member of the McIntosh committee did say to me that "if you need a taxi to get back to McIntosh from the Union then it's an ambulance you're needing not a taxi." Being this close to the union makes going out on a Friday night super convenient but also makes shopping really easy being just a stone's throw from Tesco on Market Street. It's also in a good place for both Science and Arts students being about halfway between the North Haugh and the Quad and Main Library. It's also a similar distance from St Mary's Quad and the King James Library. McIntosh is probably the most central hall because it's not t

The smallest hall in St Andrews is John Burnet Hall (It's so small that I think I met only 3 or 4 people who lived there last year after Clan Warfare since they were a bit visible in their matching t-shirts). Small is no bad thing though, because you see your hall mates so often, it means everyone knows everyone and there's always a friendly face in halls. JBH (or Jeebs) is made up of two buildings - the main hall (above - which is older and looks more like Hogwarts) and the annexe (left - which is a lot more modern). The main hall is made up of the mixed Atholl Wing, and the usually all female Kilmallie and Fairways Wings. Main Hall rooms have shared bathrooms whereas the annexe rooms are en-suite. It's in a pretty good location like most of the older halls in town. JBH residents will argue they're in the best place but given McIntosh is also pretty central between the Arts and Science buildings, I'd say it's a toss up between the two (I am however bi

One of the smaller halls in St Andrews is St Regulus Hall - Regs. Found just off South Street - ideally located for Jannetta's Ice Cream - is the late 19th century building that is home to less than 200 students. Regs used to be a hotel so as a building, it's older than even Old Wing at University Hall, but it wasn't purchased by the university until the 1950s. Like Uni Hall and Sallies, Regs is a catered hall so everyone will have meals together in the main building and have to fend for themselves for weekend dinners. The hall is split into a main building, next to the new Music Centre, and just down the street, the Regs Annexe. Annexe residents will eat in the main building (even when it rains so bring a coat - although it is Scotland so you'd be silly not to). Eating together makes finding friends really easy in halls, and because there's such a large number of returning students in Regs, you'll find the community feeling to be really strong as many people

By far the most different of the student halls in St Andrews is the patch of land about 25 minutes walk from the town centre that plays host to the David Russell Apartments and Fife Park. They're different in that they aren't a single building or two buildings sharing a committee. DRAFP is a collection of buildings each with about a dozen flats in them. Each flat has about 5 people in it that share a living/kitchen area between them. It's described by the uni as offering the feel of private renting but with the support of living in halls. DRA and Fife Park share a combined committee that is responsible for about 1200 students, more than any other committee by far. As a result however they also have the largest budget. The location of DRA and Fife Park is a bit of a sticking point of a lot of students and I've heard it called "D-R-Far away" in the past. It's about 15 minutes from the next closest hall, Andrew Melville and about 25 minutes from the stude

Nestled away, just of North Street, behind the Younger Hall, lies St Salvator's Hall. One of the most magnificent looking halls in St Andrews. It's one of the universities catered halls and as a result has a vibrant community, because like in the other catered halls, everyone eats together. This includes the residents of the Sallies annexe, Gannochy House which can be found a very short distance away and faces out onto North Street. Gannochy might not have the most appealing exterior but in the words of Sallies and Gannochy Senior Student, Stella Maris "Gannochy is lovely on the inside". St Salvator's Hall and Gannochy House offer both shared and single standard catered rooms as well as a very small number of ensuite rooms. For this year, there are going to be a small number of rooms set aside in Gannochy House as Standard Self Catered rooms but it'll be extremely hard to get one of those rooms since the other standard self catered hall, Whitehorn Hall, a

The title of the hall with the most students under one roof goes to Agnes Blackadder Hall and in 2018, it's total numbers were boosted by the addition of the post-grad students in the newly completed Powell Hall. Agnes Blackadder Hall was named for the first female graduate of the University. ABH and Powell are quite near Uni Hall and Whitehorn (which I've already posted about) but instead of being on the street above the North Haugh, ABH is down on the North Haugh, between Andrew Melville Hall and the recently fire stricken Biomedical Science Building (don't worry, it's not on fire anymore!). Like Uni Hall and Whitehorn, ABPH is in an ideal location for any science students since you can pretty much fall out of bed into a lecture theatre, as well as for anyone using the Athletic Union. It's not too far from town either and I have it on good authority that it can take "15 minutes if you walk slowly".  While it's not the prettiest building from the ou

So your accommodation offer finally came through, maybe you were one of the lucky ones that got it early or maybe you were later. It doesn't matter because you all move in on the same day. Welcome to University and Whitehorn Halls. University Hall is the hall I've called my home for the last year and it was recently joined by Whitehorn Hall that shares it's grounds. I've loved living in Uni Hall during my first year and I'm returning in September as the hall committee treasurer but I'll explain more about hall committees in a future post. University Hall is the University's oldest purpose built hall of residence, opening in 1896 as an all female hall of residence (although clearly it's moved on from that). It now has 3 distinct wings each with their own character and they're all a little different. Old Wing (right), Lumsden Wing, which was build later and has smaller rooms but is a bit warmer, and Wardlaw Wing (below) which is the only remaini

So you've applied for accommodation at the University of St Andrews and you might even have your offer by now but what is university accommodation like? Well given I've spent the last year as a resident of University Hall and now serve as Treasurer on the hall committee I think I should be able to tell you a little about it. In case you're a little confused about who I am and what this blog is for then please check out the "Welcome to the Blog" post where I explained just that. Anyway, university accommodation. It's not exactly easy to explain as a blanket statement for St Andrews as unlike at some universities, where every hall is basically a carbon copy of any other, every hall here is different. Different sizes, locations, types of accommodation, living arrangements, rivalries, communities and everyone experiences something different. There are a few types of accommodation at St Andrews: Standard Catered, Standard Self Catered, En-suite Catered and

Hi, I'm Thomas and I'm about to enter my second year at the University of St Andrews. I study in the School of Physics and Astronomy for a MPhys degree in Astrophysics. For the last year I've lived in University Hall where I'm going to be returning this year. In this blog I'm going to try and offer my experiences and advice for all incoming students to the university and tell you a bit about my experiences at the university and in the town of St Andrews. I'll try to keep the updates regular and if you have any questions feel free to comment below and I'll try and give the best answers I can in the next post. With that out of the way I'll tell you a little about myself. I'm from a small town called Bonnybridge, near Falkirk in Central Scotland. I started in St Andrews in September 2018 entering into first year (not direct entry) of the MPhys Astrophysics course. I came to the uni knowing only one person who'd come from the same school as me bu