I've lived on campus for 2 years now, and can not recommend it highly enough! By far it is the best way to go. basically the breakdown of the 4 colleges is this:
Evatt $120/wk - self-catered, thus mainly girls, about 70-30 ratio girls to guys, fun place, nice ppl. accom is in units with living room/kitchen between 10 and toilets between 5 ppl
IH $158/wk- semi-catered, (where i am!) we get dinners each week night, but do our own breaky, lunch and dinner and all meals on wknds. this suits ppl who want to go back to sydney, or just might not be around during wknds, or just like cooking with friends! it's about 50/50 guys to girls and is 50/50 internationals to australians, which means u get a lot of very funny and friendly (and drunk) americans and scandanavians. accom is the same setup as evatt
Teds (Edwards Hall) $188/wk- is fully catered: breaky and dinner during the week, and all 3 meals on wknds. ideal if your lazy tehehe. i have a lot of my mates who live/lived there and love it. great place. accom is in large dorm buildings, or 3-4 floors. u have about 20 ppl on your hallway, and u share a few showers/toilets and a wee lil kitchenette (dont need much more cause u dont/can't cook there!
). teds is about 50/50 guys girls as well.
all 3 of these colleges have great social lives, the social clubs organise plenty of events (tonight Teds is going to Jazz in the Park, and IH is going night lawnbowls at local bowling club, followed by local Irish Pub for Sty. Pat's day.. dunno what evatt is doing, going to sum pub sumwhere to drink)
the 4th college, Barahineban $190/wk/room is setup so u either share a room (with kitchenette/shower/toilet) with a roommate, or you pay a fortune to have it to yuorself. there is no catering provided, and its very quite and secluded. social life doesnt really exist there. it's ideal for internationals or older students who might want to "retire" from the other colleges. i strongly recommend aGAINST moving there in your first yr.
as for shopping.. well college students get a free bus to jesmond shops every thursday night to go grocery shopping/whatever else u want to buy (beer etc). as others have said, charlestown shops are big as well (but farther away, about 25 mins on bus).
if u live on college parking isnt a problem.. u get free residential parking and u walk to class. it's 15 min drive to beach/city.
and as for Sydney? who cares?!?!?!?! why would anyone want to go there!
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p.s. IH is the best... but i'm biased lol.