@abgemacht. On-campus University accommodation is one person to a room, but with communal dinning rooms (where meals are prepared for you), and communal recreational areas etc. Alternatively universities often offer apartments too.

@Spy - Quite a number of people here share a room.

You're in the UK though figlesquidge, right? I am in Australia.

I would have hated to share at room when I was at uni. I had enough of that at boarding school.

Ugh, boarding school. We should abolish them, for a start - and all private schools. Poor spyman for having to attend such a bizzare, socially divisive institution.

Jamiet99uk, it was a bizarre institution (quite absusive). My parents paid a fortune to send me to a prison like institution for five years. The kids ran the boarding house too, it was like Lord of the Flies. Plus the school was so old fashioned in its mentality. It tell people today about about some of the stuff that went on (I was at school in the 1980s), and they are truly shocked.

Interesting, my Dad went to a boarding school and thought it was great - a year or so ago they were considering sending my little brother off. A couple of girls I know go/went to boarding schools, and they also said they were really good schools, although lamented the lack of male attention.
I guess that something with that much contact time really depends on the specific case. A bad 'normal school' you only have to see 7hrs a day, so at least you can get away from it and enjoy the rest of your time.

@figle & spyman
My experience of UK uni's is that the vast majority of students (well... first years anyway) have the same experience as described by spyman. Room sharing exists but is quite rare. After the first year you're generally left to find your own place to live and sharing a house or flat becomes common. Sharing a room with a housemate is quite unusual, but has happened with a few couples I know... with hilarious consequences when they split up

I had to share a room in my first year at Uni (in Scotland) but after that I rented, shared a house with two other people, but my own room.

"You're in the UK though figlesquidge, right? I am in Australia." - what's the difference? same head of state? i mean they are just different arms of the same hereditary monarchy, stuck in the expansionist imperial past...

I stayed in a Scottish University (off)-campus accomadation one summer, we each had our own rooms, but shared kitchen and toilet/shower with about 5/6 others.

great times.

@Orathaic "what's the difference?" they use Durex differently

That's what most accom is like here Orathaic, its just they have one block of sharing, which is partially because they don't have anywhere near enough rooms even for first years - I didn't get one at all.

@Oct - The people sharing rooms are all same-gender, although I don't know if they check people's sexual preferences before assigning them to it. Two of my friends got together, and only lived 4 doors down the hall from one another - they found it just got too serious too quickly.

@figle

Could you clarify that last statement? Are you saying that the entire floor is same gender or just individual rooms?

Just in each shared room.
There is one block of single-sex accommodation, but I don't know where.

OK, that sounds pretty much like what I did my first two years at University.

I actually didn't mind sharing a room at all, but I also had a great roommate; this is the 5th year we're living together. Some of my friends got stuck with really bad roommates and for them it sucked.

Yes, thats an issue. The main accom office does try quite hard to match people in flats so that you all get on (they send out a questionaire and stuff) but where I am you just get put in as you apply, meaning 3 of my 4 flatmates are terrible.