More about halls

Since many of you who got accepted already are wondering which hall to choose, and I remember last year for myself it was kind of confusing since there are 7 halls and mostly everyone I talked to then just applied to hall 7 so I did that as well.(and got rejected) Some of you are coming to see the halls so I think it's going to be fine for you in choosing, but for those who can't come, I hope this helps....


Since when it comes to hall, there are some criteria that you would choose them by. I can name of three criteria that can come into question for sure: Location, Cleanliness, Activities involved.

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Location, Location, Location...

<Click to enlarge, due to this photo being old, hall 6 and hall 7 are absent>

When it comes to location, Hall 1 triumphs all, since it's closest to the Academic Building. What does that mean? It usually means 10-minute-walk to class instead of 20 especially if you live in hall 3 or hall 4. Ranging from Closest to furthest halls it would be :


Hall 1 > Hall 5 > Hall 2 > Hall 6 > Hall 7 > Hall 3 & Hall 4


If 10 minute more sleep time for you isn't that big of a deal, then it should be fine. Since the other halls also have other locational advantage as well. For example, Hall 7 has the nicest view by far and you can look down to see the swimming pool and decide on the spot whether to go swimming or not. Hall 4 is closest to the tennis court if you feel like spontaneously going out to hit the court some time. Under hall 6, there is a up-till-late canteen for midnight sandwiches and congee, recommended during exam period.


Cleanliness

Hall 7 front view and a sample room of hall 7 and 6

Hall 3 and a sample room (Also similar to hall 1-4)

When it comes to cleanliness, Hall 6 and Hall 7 are better than all other halls due to the fact that they are new. Bathrooms in hall 1-6 are completely shared among your floor members while bathrooms in hall 7 are separate. There is one bathroom for every two rooms which means you will share it with 3 other people or 1 other person if you're in a single room. Hall 6's bathrooms, although shared, are relatively cleaner than the other halls that have shared bathrooms as well. The halls here are built according to numbers so hall 1 and 2 are the oldest so that affects its cleanliness as well. But all the halls have maids that clean the bathrooms for you, so it's usually cleaner in the day after 11AM or so.
so in term of cleanliness:


Hall 7 (depending on your roommates and neighbors) > Hall 6 > Hall 5 > Hall 1 & 2 > Hall 3 > Hall 4


If this turns out different than your experience, there's not much I can do about it.




Activities Involved


There are student societies in hall 1-5 so there are more activities in this hall. These are LOUD activities and all held in native language, Cantonese. If you are not a Cantonese speaker, most of the time, you won't have any clue of what is going on. Local people are of course nice people, but their cultures are different and not understanding their language can be quite troublesome. The good thing about this however is that none of these activities are mandatory, so you can easily avoid it. Some halls like hall 4 and hall 3 are infamous of their loudness though (especially hall 4)


Hall 6 and 7 also have some activities involved which are called Living Learning Communities (mainly hall 7), the activities here are all in English (with the exception of Rise & Shine) and most of them are mandatory otherwise you might get kicked out and sent to a different hall after one semester. Visit the LLC website for more details : http://llc.ust.hk/
In hall 6, only some floors have these LLC so many of the floors have almost no activities involved. Ranking from Quietness of each hall:

Hall 6 > Hall 7 > Hall 5 > Hall 1 & 2 > Hall 3 > Hall 4


For those who don't think, loudness and quietness should matter in picking a hall...you probably have never woken up in the middle of the night from the sound of Mah Jong tiles cracking in the room next door :P But I do think that if you want to see more of Hong Kong, don't just stay in your room and try to join the madness they call university-life here. Especially in hall 3 since I'm a current resident and the people are really really nice to me.


Tips for all halls:

• For all the halls, you are in charge of the cleanliness of your own room so as long as you take good care of your room, everything else won't be too much of a trouble.
• For when you get here, your room will be empty so you will need bed-sheet, pillow, blanket. Your international mentors will most likely take you out to buy these things, but in case you want to bring them from home instead here are some infos you might want to know. The bed-sheet for the beds here are 36"x75"x10", I got it at a grocery store here for 109HKD along with a pillow case. A sleeping pillow is cheapest 60HKD, I got mine for 100HKD and I think some expensive ones are up to 300HKD
• Hall 1 only has double rooms, Hall 2-4 have both double rooms and triple rooms(two bunk beds). From what I gather, hall 3 triple rooms are the most spacious. Hall 5 has the smallest rooms since some rooms used to be a single room but got a bunk-bed installed making it a double room. Hall 6 are also double and triple and Hall 7 rooms are double and single rooms. It's quite rare to get a single room so get used to living with a roommate. If you have a local roommate, get ready to experience some culture shock first-handedly :P but you're likely to get the room to yourself on the weekends. International and Mainland roommates...they're always there with you. ALWAYS there.
• Each hall official informations are here: 

1. UG Hall 1: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG1/ug1.html
2. UG Hall 2: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG2/ug2.html
3. UG Hall 3: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG3/ug3.html
4. UG Hall 4: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG4/ug4.html
5. UG Hall 5: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/PGII/pg2.html
6. UG Hall 6: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG6/ug6.html
7. UG Hall 7: https://sao.ust.hk/housing/Halls/UG7/ug7.html

• On each floor in every hall, there will be a common room which also have televisions, refrigerators and microwave ovens. Some even have a hotplate for you to do some light cooking but no more than that is allowed. You need to know that FOOD DO GET STOLEN, no matter where you are so be careful when you keep your food in the fridge.
• In hall 1-5, you will be given two keys, one for the door and another one for your drawer. Hall 6 and 7 have keycards instead, which makes it even easier to lock yourself outside.  If you lock yourself  outside your room, you will need to pay 10 HKD to the front office so they'll open your room for you. If you lose the keys, then it will be 80HKD for EACH key. For keycards, I'm not sure myself.