List it as one of your top choices for residence, if you get in the process for changing it is really tiresome, and your parents will have to let you go. ;)

The floors are a pretty even ratio but sometimes 60/40 or so. Engineering floors are often mostly male. And I'm pretty sure the MIT floor is generally mostly female.

As far as arrangement on the floor, it depends on the rez. The suite-style rezes alternate between male and female suites. Med-Syd has floors that are split down the middle (so you're always closer to the washroom). I'm not sure about Saugeen or Deli... maybe someone else could help you there?

And feel free to ask anything, there were a lot of things I wish I knew coming in, but I can't remember them all now...

I'm not sure about the order of accepting offers but I know that Western needs to receive your deposit by June 1st this year. This means that you should probably do it ASAP since the deadline is this Friday :P
As for the questionnaire, the deadline for that to be completed is June 6th. You'll still be able to complete it after that date but you might not get your preferences accommodated since the residence assignments will have already started.

I didn't meet anyone during first year who didn't have RezNet. I mean if you are living in residence, then it actually is convenient to have it.

It won't be impossible. There are a few tricks you could pull. If your in a suite, there's an Ethernet port in the common area, so set up your own router there and you should be able to get wireless connection for you and your suitemates. My suitemates and I did that for some convenience (even though we all had reznet) but you get slower speeds with that than you would with the normal LAN connection in your own room.

They warn you NOT to set up a wireless router, but they don't do anything about it lol.

Hope that helps.

@nika94

I was at saugeen and it was about a 50/50 guy/girl ratio on my floor, and the rooms alternate between guy/guy and girl/girl

@ChouLace

tbh Reznet sucks at night time (after 9pm) when everyone goes on and does their stuff. But in the end I think its worth it because of DC++ (basically a sharing program like Limewire where you can download movies, tv shows, music, games etc at a very rapid rate (1 mb/sec +)and only counts as internal data which is the 10gb limit) One thing with reznet though, do NOT go over the said limit (4gb ext/10gb int) They put you on a slow internet for 5 days which sucks.

Choose what interests you. A bird course for one person may be a low mark for someone who doesn't enjoy it. I have a friend who took astronomy because she thought it would be like in Harry Potter, and was very disappointed... and disliked course for the rest of the year. Moral of that story: if you dislike your elective in the first couple classes, switch to another course. And astronomy is not star-gazing, sadly. Check out the syllabus before choosing electives if possible.

Personally, the easiest courses I've taken have been German 1030 and Psych 2070A, likely because I really enjoyed learning the material (since somehow the average in that psych class was 70 or something). Psych 1000 is a good course if it interests you. The concepts aren't difficult, it's just remembering all the terms, etc and fitting all the reading in.

Check your UWO email for a confirmation. The system usually sends you a copy of all the choices you submitted, but the form in myResidence shows up blank every time. If you don't have a confirmation email then I'd redo it if I were you.

London Hall will likely be about 90% first year students. Last year there ended up being one floor that had about half upper-year students and the other half older frosh (mainly 19+), and then some other upper-year students were placed in suites with a residence staff member. The specialty floors are created by demand, so it's unlikely there will actually be a graduate floor, but I guess you never know!

But being an upper-year student in rez with first years can be a great experience if you interact with your floor. I volunteered (sophed) for the past two years in London Hall because I wanted to help frosh, and it was amazing. It will always hold a lot of happy memories and I'll be visiting more this year :) The atmosphere is great there, because it's small and more relaxed/low-key than other residences I've spent time in. There are of course a few frosh who drink a lot and get belligerent, but it's a small percentage. This past year I got to know a lot of awesome people (frosh, sophs, and staff), planned and attended many fun rez events and helped frosh with any school and life questions I could answer. For the record, I've got really high academic goals and I place high value on sleep and health, and I was able to maintain those quite well in rez. So if you get involved, you could end up being a positive influence and a mentor in the community. If that's not your idea of a good time, then you may not enjoy London Hall so much, and perhaps the apartments or other off-campus accomodation would be better.

Feel free to ask more about London Hall, and I'll do my best to minimize the bias!

@meeka1

It's extremely unlikely you would be placed with a first-year suitemate. You may end up with a second year though (staff or otherwise). I'm 22 as well and I felt like I could relate to most of the frosh well, apart from our differences in education experience.

I don’t really know how to give you all the info you need to make a good decision, so here’s an example of my daily experiences, and maybe you can judge from that?
Silent in the morning, might see a couple people. During the day it’s really quiet, some people around with doors open if you want to say hi. Around 5-7pm groups of people walk up and down the halls to go get dinner from the café in Essex. I cooked in my suite but always left the door open so people would say hi or come in for a couple minutes. In the evening people walk to snack bar or to hang out, and I could usually hear people hanging out down the hall. On some weekends this could get a pretty loud if people were partying in a suite nearby. But over the year, even being a light sleeper and going to sleep early, I was probably only woken up 2 or 3 times (and then earplugs do a pretty good job).

Also note that there are quiet hours in place so you can speak to a staff member or call the front desk if people are being loud. Or just walk out and tell them to be quiet and they usually listen. Rez staff usually keeps everyone pretty under control anyway. During exam period quiet hours are 24/7.

Definitely consider how you react to immaturity before living in rez. Occasionally frosh do stupid things when drunk and say offensive things because they think it’s cool. My reaction is generally to make sure the drunk kids (and those around them) are safe and laugh at the ridiculous things they do. And explain to the offensive people why what they’ve said/done is offensive (see this video: vimeo.com/21210913 I think – it’s blocked on the computer I’m on). Once they understand, I rarely hear it again. But if you would just be annoyed by these things, then rez may not be the ideal place for you.

ANNND there are tons of other opportunities to get involved on campus and in London if you choose not to live in rez. You’ll just have to seek these out. As long as you make the effort to be involved somehow, you will have a great experience.

I'm happy I could help, and I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I did! I shall be back to visit :)