Originally Posted by goelk

now i'm beginning to think tht it is better if i live off campus!! so could you guys tell me something about les prince hall? wats bad and good? also how long does it take to walk from les prince to ABB?
thanks

Les Prince is the newest residence, and the only one to have washrooms inside the room, with the except of the apartment-style residences. It is a really nice building and generally clean. However, it might be noisier to live in a residence building, especially during welcome week when Welcome Week Reps go around banging on everyone's doors, so you might want to take that into consideration.

While Les Prince is relatively far from ABB, it is generally far from pretty much every building since it is at the northern most tip of campus. However, I think many people who live at Les Prince just get used to it, or bring their bikes/roller blades to get around campus. Our campus isn't very big anyway compared to most universities.

Originally Posted by nh999

Les Prince is the newest residence, and the only one to have washrooms inside the room, with the except of the apartment-style residences. It is a really nice building and generally clean. However, it might be noisier to live in a residence building, especially during welcome week when Welcome Week Reps go around banging on everyone's doors, so you might want to take that into consideration.

While Les Prince is relatively far from ABB, it is generally far from pretty much every building since it is at the northern most tip of campus. However, I think many people who live at Les Prince just get used to it, or bring their bikes/roller blades to get around campus. Our campus isn't very big anyway compared to most universities.

Oh right, another con is cleaning the bathroom...

Ok...anyone else viewing this thread randomly hear a 20 second clip of Thriller?

:S

we'll have to clean the bathroom ourselves? won't we have to clean the bathroom ourselves when we live off campus also?

Originally Posted by goelk

Hey,
I am from India and therefore don't know much about the residence and other living conditions in Canada and will be joining McMaster this fall for Engineering Level 1.

Now I have a couple of options regarding on campus and off campus residence so please help me out with it!!

Few minutes back I was allotted a double room with washroom in Les Prince Hall.But some people tell me that I should stay off campus as it will be much cheaper and I'll get an entire room to myself. I kinda agree with them because I do want to save money and therefore I am planning to live off campus itself.

Now there is one room that I inquired about....it is a basement room with all utilities for $350 per month, 10 mins walk to MAC...people staying on the floor above me are paying $400 per month. Now I'm not really aware of this basement housing system so could someone explain it to me as to what are the pros and cons of living in a basement? Obviously I can figure out that living in a basement isn't that great because it is $50 cheaper. Try to focus on the cons of basement housing. So could you please familiarize me with the basement system?

Also if you were in my place, what would you have chosen?
Thanks in adance...

I would definitely choose residence.

* you will miss the sunshine...a lot. Living in a basement is dark, dark, dark, and wintertime in Hamilton is very cloudy and grey. Coming from India, I think you'd miss it more than most.

* you will miss out on vast numbers of opportunities to meet other people -- when I did my first degree, I spent my first year in residence, and despite wanting to live in a single room (I'm intensely private, and like things quiet and "just so"), I got a room mate. We got along okay, but didn't become best friends, however, living in residence was one of the best things I ever could have done. I cannot imagine how my four years would have been if I had not lived on campus and gotten to know all of those other people, and done all of those activities that I was exposed to -- there was no other way to do so (had I lived off campus)

Best of luck to you in deciding

Okay soo I was an international student from Pakistan as well last year. I was forced into off campus housing by circumstances rather then choice though(I decided to come to Mac in August, long story). And to put it in short words, I would NOT recommend you to live off campus at all, it is cheaper surely but it leads to isolation and lack of confidence and general happiness. The reason being, and the Canadian people advising you here wouldn't understand is that us foreign lot find it hard to adapt to the way of living and the culture in Canada. It is highly important therefore to be under constant surrounding with 100's of first year students and more imporatantly people from whom you will aquire the local culture. I mean I'm sort of doing okay right now but that is mostly because I'm unusally enterprising as an individual and managed to get myself involved with Varsity/Intramural sports, with the student union and other 4-5 organizations but if I'm asked right now would I have lived on residence if given the option I would answer YES in a second. However one little problem you could face in Engineering is that you have a higherwork load then I as a social science student had and Residences are loud and distracting, you could end up in a downward spiral of not studying faster then you can imagine. But on the other hand if you can take out time to leave the room and go to the library and do some quality studying every single day you should be good!

Remember you are here for 4 years and you can always have your privacy etc for the next 3 years!

Also if you have further questions you should contact this user name Aj maxx or something he wrote this article about being an international engineering student from India and living off campus...Its on Macinsiders somewhere under the Articles section or First year guides.

p.s: Indian Cricket slogan for T20: Yeh Cup kahin nahin jaye ga BHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Epic Fail.

Originally Posted by daisy

I would definitely choose residence.

* you will miss the sunshine...a lot. Living in a basement is dark, dark, dark, and wintertime in Hamilton is very cloudy and grey. Coming from India, I think you'd miss it more than most.

lol Daisy probably not! I and all the miniscule handful of Pakistani people who came to Canada actually love rain and cloudy weather. Its actually opposite back there, a sunny hot day is your typical annoying weather.
Overall happiness levels of people actually go up when it rains and is cloudy, its remarkable how different everyone is on the 10-20 days a year we get Rain. But lol we don't like the cold accompanying winter that very much

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

lol Daisy probably not! I and all the miniscule handful of Pakistani people who came to Canada actually love rain and cloudy weather. Its actually opposite back there, a sunny hot day is your typical annoying weather.
Overall happiness levels of people actually go up when it rains and is cloudy, its remarkable how different everyone is on the 10-20 days a year we get Rain. But lol we don't like the cold accompanying winter that very much

Haha! Then you'll love the wet snow and slush and cold grey days, LOL! Or maybe not (sorry, I thought you had written that you were coming from India, not Pakistan!)

Myself: I like it sunny and cool (I wonder if such a place exists?)

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

lol Daisy probably not! I and all the miniscule handful of Pakistani people who came to Canada actually love rain and cloudy weather. Its actually opposite back there, a sunny hot day is your typical annoying weather.
Overall happiness levels of people actually go up when it rains and is cloudy, its remarkable how different everyone is on the 10-20 days a year we get Rain. But lol we don't like the cold accompanying winter that very much

I welcome rain on hot days in Canada as well... and I was born here XD

Originally Posted by daisy

Haha! Then you'll love the wet snow and slush and cold grey days, LOL! Or maybe not

Myyself: I like it sunny and cool (I wonder if such a place exists?)

The North Pole during the 6 months of light? But it's not really cool... more like freezing your butt off XD. I really like spring here though.

Originally Posted by daisy

Haha! Then you'll love the wet snow and slush and cold grey days, LOL! Or maybe not

Myself: I like it sunny and cool (I wonder if such a place exists?)

Lol yeah I actually loved the never ending greyish slushy snowy weather, but the Cold that tagged along with it was horrible; but if I am to compare it with the Hottest 45C 90% Humidity days back home, I would think I'd prefer the Cold(Simply because you can layer yourselves up :S)

And as for Sunny and Cool it would be Vancouver or South Africa or South Coast of France perhaps? Or Probably Places on the Equator(who don't have seasons) like Kenya or South America.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Lol yeah I actually loved the never ending greyish slushy snowy weather, but the Cold that tagged along with it was horrible; but if I am to compare it with the Hottest 45C 90% Humidity days back home, I would think I'd prefer the Cold(Simply because you can layer yourselves up :S)

And as for Sunny and Cool it would be Vancouver or South Africa or South Coast of France perhaps? Or Probably Places on the Equator(who don't have seasons) like Kenya or South America.

Equator countries tend to be humid though, don't they? I hate humidity, well a certain percentage of humidity. No humidity really sucks too.

The best days are the days right after the rain. I love those days ^-^

Originally Posted by jhan523

I welcome rain on hot days in Canada as well... and I was born here XD

The best is a killer thunderstorm after a super hot day, it's amazing. <3

Originally Posted by feonateresa

The best is a killer thunderstorm after a super hot day, it's amazing. <3

One of my favourite things! Especially in Manitoba (short and intense and sweet).

I agree! only when its actual heavy rain though, not the stupid humid dew-type of thing.. Hate that feeling