Move-in day runs on adrenaline. There is a car to unload, a queue at the desk, parents who want to help and a corridor full of people you will know for the next three years. The temptation is to drop everything on the bed and start decorating.
Resist it for twenty minutes. The state of the room when you accept it is the state you will be judged against when you leave it, and a handful of things are far cheaper to fix on day one than in week six.
Do the condition report before anything comes out of a box
Almost every hall gives you an inventory or condition form, and almost every hall sets a deadline of a few days to return it. That form is the only thing standing between you and a deduction for damage you did not cause.
- Walk the room with your phone camera running and narrate what you see. Timestamped video beats a tick box.
- Photograph anything already broken, stained, chipped, scratched, or missing: carpet marks, desk gouges, a cracked blind, a wardrobe door that will not close, limescale in the sink.
- Write those things on the form even if they seem trivial. "Small burn mark on desk, right side" is a sentence that pays for itself.
- Keep a copy. Email the photos to yourself so they are date-stamped somewhere outside your phone.
Check the things that decide whether you sleep
Comfort problems feel small in daylight and enormous at 2am. Test them while there is still someone at the accommodation desk to fix them.
- The mattress. Lie on it. If it sags or smells, ask for a replacement now, not in November when they have none left.
- The heating and the window. Does the radiator come on? Does the window actually close and lock? Is there a blackout option, or will you be buying a sleep mask?
- Noise. Stand still for a minute. A room over a bin store, a lift shaft, a fire door or a kitchen is a room you will want to know about early, because room swaps are easiest in the first fortnight.
- Light and sockets. Count the plug sockets and note where they are. Most halls ban daisy-chained extension leads but allow a single surge-protected strip. Ask, do not assume.
Find the safety things while someone can show you
You will not want to learn the fire route during an actual alarm at 4am.
- Locate the two nearest fire exits and the assembly point. Two, because one may be the one that is blocked.
- Check that the smoke detector in your room has a light on it. Never cover one, and never cook in your room if the rules forbid it.
- Find out how the door locks, what happens if you lock yourself out, what a replacement key or card costs, and whether there is a night porter.
- Save the security number and the accommodation office number in your phone before you need either.
Sort the admin that has a deadline
Some of this expires quietly and costs you money later.
- Wi-Fi registration, and the process for registering a second device.
- Where post and parcels are delivered, how you are notified, and how long they hold them.
- Laundry: card, app, or coins, and what a wash costs.
- Contents insurance. Many halls include a basic policy; check what it actually covers, because "laptop away from the room" often is not in it.
- Any meal plan activation, and the first date it works.
Have the roommate conversation on day one
This is the single highest-value twenty minutes of the week, and it gets harder every day you postpone it. You are not negotiating a treaty. You are agreeing defaults so that neither of you has to guess.
- Sleep. What time do you each want lights and sound off on a weeknight? Are headphones the rule after that?
- Guests. How much notice, how late, how often, and whether an overnight guest is fine at all.
- Sharing. Which things are communal, which are absolutely not. Food, chargers, cookware, clothes.
- Cleaning. Whose turn, how often, and what "clean" means. Write it down somewhere visible; memory is a poor referee.
- Temperature and the window. Genuinely one of the most common sources of friction in shared rooms.
Agree that either of you can raise a problem in the first week without it being a confrontation. Most roommate disputes are not about the dispute; they are about three months of silence beforehand.
What not to buy yet
The shopping list you made in August is mostly wrong, because it was written by someone who had not seen the room.
- Storage and furniture. Measure first. Under-bed boxes are useless if the frame sits low, and a second lamp is pointless if there is nowhere to plug it in.
- Anything the hall provides. Ask before you buy a kettle, a bin, a drying rack, or a desk lamp.
- Textbooks. Wait for the first lecture. Reading lists get revised, some titles turn out to be recommended rather than required, and lecturers routinely tell you which edition they actually teach from. Buying the wrong edition in week zero is the most common and most expensive first-year mistake, and it is entirely avoidable by waiting seven days. When you do buy, work from the 13-digit ISBN rather than the title, and check the return window before you pay.
The first twenty-four hours, in order
- Video the room and complete the condition form.
- Test bed, heating, window, lock, sockets, Wi-Fi.
- Find the fire exits, the assembly point, and the security number.
- Unpack only what you need to sleep and shower tonight.
- Have the roommate conversation.
- Walk to the nearest supermarket, pharmacy, and campus health centre so you know where they are before you need them.
- Buy food for two days. Nothing else.
Everything else can wait a week, and most of it will change once you have been to a lecture. The room does not need to look finished on the first night. It needs to be somewhere you can sleep, work, and get out of quickly if an alarm goes off.