UL provides six student villages, but there are several off campus options available to students too. <\/p>\n
Parkview Hall, is situated on the Dublin Road and is a thirty to forty-minute walk from the university. <\/p>\n
\u201cI find that it is an awful trek to college and it\u2019s especially hard when you have an early morning lecture,\u201d Parkview resident Neil Doody said. \u201cIt would be ideal living on campus, particularly on rainy days because you fall out of your bed and you\u2019re in college.\u201d <\/p>\n
It can be difficult for someone who lives so far away to motivate themselves to get up early and walk to college. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe landlord here is very nice and obliging, and the apartments are spacious and modern, it\u2019s just a shame we\u2019re so far away from the other students.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are approximately eight UL students living in this particular accommodation. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that because there are so little of us who go to UL here that it makes it harder for us to socialise with the other students in UL, because in fairness who is willing to come out all the way here if they live in Kilmurry?\u201d <\/p>\n
Making the most of the many facilities UL has to offer can also be difficult when you live so far away from college. For first years in particular, it\u2019s disheartening to see people from your course, club, or society meeting up on campus but it\u2019s too dark to make the journey. <\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally a shuttle bus would be very handy to us, as the bus route is just not reliable but unfortunately, there just aren\u2019t the numbers here for UL to accommodate us,\u201d Neil added. \u201cWhen I came to Parkview Hall, I suppose I wasn\u2019t expecting that there would be so few students from UL living here. I feel like this experience would be a lot more enjoyable if there was.\u201d <\/p>\n
Parkview resident Aoife Callaghan feels that Parkview should not have been recommended on the UL website as it is too far away for most students. Her advice for people thinking about living off campus is to do research before putting down a deposit. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was under the impression that it was going to be all UL students here. I wouldn\u2019t even have minded the distance if we could just have that social interaction with UL students.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Aoife also feels that it is still much better than the alternative of living in digs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the freedom of living independently and a chance to somewhat feel like a typical student. We are lucky in a sense that we have accommodation because there are still students without accommodation who commute from different counties everyday. It\u2019s just unfortunate it can be so isolating here.\u201d<\/p>\n