Accommodation at Stony Brook University

By Rosie Atkinson, Stony Brook University, USA

Accommodation whilst on a semester or year abroad is important as it serves as your temporary ‘home’ for several months. Before I arrived at Stony Brook, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of my accommodation, so hopefully this blog post can help other students going to Stony Brook University in the future.

Costs

The rent for my room was $6,831.00 for one semester. This was for a single room in West Apartments with 2 bathrooms shared between 6 people (including me). Food was not included in the price, but what was included in the cost of the accommodation was a cleaner that came once a week who emptied the bins and cleaned communal areas such as the kitchen, living space and bathrooms. Utilities included in the rent was a fridge-freezer, microwave, toaster and toilet paper but not soap or washing-up liquid. Plates, bowls, cups and cutlery has to be supplied by yourself or your flatmates. When I arrived, my flat had an air fryer but this was something that one of my flatmates owned and kindly let me use when I needed rather than something that was provided by the university.

Room Assignments

All of the exchange students that I got to know were housed in the West Apartments complex, which includes several buildings, some more recently renovated than others, each with 3 floors of several groups of flats. Some blocks had single rooms like mine whereas others had rooms that were shared between 2 people. The flats were separated between male or female, but the buildings were mixed.

Facilities

My room, in building F, was about a 10 minute walk from West Side dining, which served food all day. The free university shuttle bus ran a short walk away from my building to take me to my lessons/the Student Activities Center, otherwise the walk took about 25 minutes. The West Apartments complex had its own office where you checked in and out upon moving in, and its own gym and computer complex. Your student ID is required to access the gym and computer room, but the cost of this is included in your rent. Furthermore, each floor of the West apartments residential blocks has a laundry room with 2 washing machines and 2 dryers available to use for free. I recommend using the website http://www.laundryview.com to check if the machines are free.

Things to Note

When I arrived at my accommodation, I was surprised to realise that I had a furry flatmate; one of my flatmates had an emotional support rat. At Stony Brook university, dogs, cats and rodents may live on campus if they are registered emotional support animals. If this may be of issue to you then I suggest speaking to the Stony Brook Accommodation team.

A useful tip for getting to know your flatmates in advance is that on the Stony Brook Housing portal, a list of all of your flatmates names and university email accounts is provided to you if you wanted to reach out to them before arriving.

Any issues that you may face on campus can quite easily be handed by the support staff. Any issues with your flat such as flooding, problems with electricity, or even wanting to adjust the height of the loft beds can be logged on the maintenance portal. Any social issues such as noise complaints or disagreements with your flatmates can be handled by the RAs (residential advisers) of which you will get assigned based on which flat you live in.

Further Information

The official Stony Brook University website has updated information about the exact move in and move out dates, as well as the items that you are not allowed to have in your room such as extension cords. Another thing to note is that room inspections do take place and any prohibited items found may result in disciplinary action. Furthermore, due to the legal drinking age being 21, even if you are over this age limit, if you share a flat with people under this age limit then you are not allowed to keep alcohol in public areas of your flat. The whole university is designated as a smoke-free campus, so if you are caught smoking anywhere on site you could get into trouble.

The bedroom came with a desk and chair, a set of draws, a place for hanging clothes, and an adjustable loft bed. There were several plug sockets in my room, an air conditioning unit and a window with blinds. Your room door could be locked and so could the door to your shared flat. In addition, the whole block could only be opened by scanning your student ID. If you ever accidentally got locked out then you could ring the number of your Residential Adviser or call in at the West Apartments reception to get someone to let you in.