More tha student accommodation

When I started looking for student accommodation in Sheffield, I thought the most important things were simple: price and distance from the university.

I was wrong.

Moving to another country makes you realise that the place you choose to live can influence almost every part of your student experience: how much time you have, how easily you meet people, how comfortable you feel, how much you spend outside your rent, and even how well you cope with stressful university weeks.

For me, finding Vita Student Accommodation in Sheffield turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during my MBA.
 

THE SHEFFIELD HILLS TAUGHT ME A LESSON

Unlike many international students, I was fortunate enough to stay with friends when I first arrived in Sheffield. This gave me time to explore the city before choosing somewhere to live.

And I quickly discovered something I had definitely not considered while looking at maps from abroad: Sheffield has hills. Lots of them.

A place that looked conveniently close to the university on Google Maps could feel very different when you actually walked there.

That experience changed the way I looked at accommodation. Location was no longer simply about distance. I started thinking about transportation, convenience, safety, facilities and what my everyday routine would actually look like.

That is how I found Vita.
 

WHAT WAS ACTUALLY INCLUDED?

At first glance, Vita was not the cheapest accommodation option I considered. But I quickly realised that comparing rent alone did not tell the whole story.

During my stay, my accommodation included things that I would otherwise have had to organise and pay for separately: breakfast on weekdays, coffee, a gym, university transportation, room cleaning, social activities and several communal spaces.

There were areas to study and socialise, games, laundry facilities, a cinema room and even a large kitchen that residents could use for gatherings with friends.

My studio was also completely private, with my own bathroom and kitchen.

As an international student adjusting to a new country while doing an intensive postgraduate degree, having everything in one place made my life much easier.
 

PAYING LESS RENT DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN SPENDING LESS

This was probably the biggest lesson I learned about choosing student accommodation.

Some of my friends paid less rent than I did, but their everyday experience was very different.

Some regularly paid for public transport or taxis. Others had gym memberships. Some shared kitchens with several flatmates and eventually preferred eating outside because keeping a communal kitchen clean was difficult.

I began to realise that accommodation should not be evaluated only by the number you see on the booking page.

Once I considered transportation, food, the gym, facilities, convenience and—perhaps most importantly—my time, Vita made much more sense financially and practically for me.

Sometimes the cheapest room is not necessarily the option that gives you the best value.
 

THE EVENTS I NEVER EXPECTED TO NEED

The part of Vita that surprised me most was not my room or the facilities.

It was the events.

There were cooking classes with chefs, fitness sessions with instructors, creative workshops, cocktail-making activities and many other opportunities to try something different.

People attended for different reasons. Some wanted to meet new friends. Some came for the food. Others wanted to exercise or simply have fun.

For me, they became something else.

MBA life can be intense. There were days when I would return home after classes or hours of working on assignments and discover that there was a painting or pottery activity happening downstairs.

Being able to walk into a room, put my laptop away and spend some time making something with my hands gave me a mental break that I did not realise I needed.

That is one of those things that is difficult to put a price on.
 

FROM A STUDENT BUILDING TO MY HOME

When you move abroad, you leave behind more than your house. You leave your routines, familiar places, family, friends and all those little things that normally make you feel at home.

That is why I believe choosing accommodation as an international student is about much more than finding somewhere to sleep.

You are choosing the place you will return to after a difficult exam, where you will make dinner after a long day, where you may meet some of your first friends and where a significant part of your experience abroad will happen.

Vita started as simply the building where I was going to live while completing my MBA.

Eventually, it became the place where I exercised, studied, relaxed, met people, tried new things and created memories completely unrelated to university.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like student accommodation.

It became my home in Sheffield.

My advice to anyone choosing accommodation from another country is simple: don't look only at the rent and the distance on a map. Think about the life you want to have once you arrive.

Sometimes where you live becomes one of the most important parts of studying abroad.

- Carolina