By Cassie Melrose

BU Graduate, BA (Hons) Retail Management

I cannot speak more highly of Bournemouth as a place to live. There are a number of activities which you can do with friends, from the local tennis courts, to the amazing beach, the aquarium, hundreds of restaurants, cinemas and plenty more. If you like to shop Bournemouth is also the perfect place to come, with the massive number of shops in the town and out of town shopping centre, Castlepoint. I have never found myself stuck with nothing to do and what’s better is once you are in the town everything is just a short walk away.

Bournemouth also has an amazing and varied offering for nightlife activities! Whether you like to go out every night (needing some serious stamina) or just like the occasional night out Bournemouth town has something for everyone, every night of the week. There are plenty of pubs and bars for a few drinks with your friends but there are also a number of large nightclubs for people who like to dance and stay out until the early hours of the morning.

Bournemouth University is one of the only unis to own its own nightclub, The Old Firestation. I spent my first two weeks of fresher’s in there and loved every night. During fresher’s week the uni puts on a number of different themed nights which is a great way to get to know people. Most flats or houses hold a ‘pre drinks’ before the night out. I was really lucky that I immediately got on well with the people in my flat and we all went to the nights together, however, if your new flat/house mates don’t want to go out and you do, just tag along to someone else’s pre drinks. I found that everyone was more than welcoming and just keen to get to know as many people as possible.

There are so many other ways of meeting people too; on your course, varsity teams and clubs and societies. All of these will hold socials in some of the best nightclubs in town which are always seriously fun to go along to!

You soon learn which places are best on which nights but I have listed the nightclubs that I found best on different nights (2013), with at least one student night being held every day of the week.

Monday– Vodka Revolutions, Halo, Lola Lo.

Tuesday– Lola Lo, Walkabout.

Wednesday– Bar Me/ Yates and then onto Cameo

Thursday– Bonsai, Lola Lo

Friday– The Old Firestation, Walkabout

Saturday– All nightclubs open but tends to be a little more expensive as not a student night.

Sunday– Walkabout- Snakebite Sundays, Myu Bar

The Old Firestation also hosts different kinds of nights throughout the year for example:

Get Satisfied and One Love- for house music lovers, WAYF (we are your friends)- once a month on a Saturday, Bloc Party- lots of acts and a wristband that lets you into loads of venues, Milk- Indie music and a comedy club.

There is also the O2 academy which holds lots of events such as Bedlum- drum and bass and different acts, Disclosure being one of these last year.

I attended all my course socials, was part of the BUSmoriders (ski and snowboard society), attending every social and ski trip to France through this and was also lucky that one of my housemates was in the basketball team and therefore I went along to their games and socials to. If you play a sport, varsity teams can create a whole new social group for you, they do loads of fun things and I would definitely recommend trying to get involved.

Living on a student budget can be challenging however activities such as going to the beach or park with all your friends you will make at uni are completely free, especially if you live in halls in town as you can walk nearly everywhere. Student nights in Bournemouth are pretty cheap on comparison to what you may be used to. I have listed below the standard costs I would have for a night out.

Pre drinks: Bottle of wine (shared with housemate): £5

Getting there: If you live in accommodation in town you can walk. However in second year most students move to Winton. Taxis from here to town range from £6 to £10 depending on how far into Winton you live. However share that with yours mates and it’s only a couple of quid each.

Entry: Some bars and clubs are free but you will not find anywhere more expensive than £5 on a student night. On a Saturday most bars charge a couple of quid and clubs charge £5.

Drinks: Depending on what night you go out there are different drink prices. Walkabout charges £1 for every drink on a Tuesday! Other places you can usually get a vodka and coke for around £2.50. Drinks are really pretty cheap wherever you go on student night but can get more towards the £6/7 range on a Saturday.

Overall Bournemouth has everything you could possibly want socially. Just have the confidence to go and join in with it and you will have an absolutely amazing time!