Ramon from Philippines, Studying Masters of Commerce
The studio has its own kitchen, which means I could cook my food anytime of the day but on top of this, I was very pleased to know that NCV actually has this meal plan where…you can subscribe to that meal plan and choose between lunches and dinner 10 times a week the food you want to eat, served to you already. So that gives me the best of both worlds.
Ramon from Philippines, Studying Masters of Commerce
Ramon's Experience:
Hi I’m Ramon Carlo and I’m currently studying a Master of Commerce here at UNSW. I came last January and I’m currently under a scholarship under the Australian government. I currently teach at my university back home and part of the scholarship’s goals means I must bring back what I learn here and use that knowledge to improve things back home.
When I was searching for accommodation it was such a stressful time in the university, considering I had just come here and classes would be starting one week away, and all the accommodation is filling up really fast. What happened there was I was searching UNSW accommodation websites and curiously NCV was not on this list. This actually became a benefit since being not on that list gave me the relief that I had more options of having a university accommodation, which are very decent in its own right.
I’ll be honest, the first thing I checked when I looked at NCV was the cost and compared it with other accommodations which are similar, and what I noticed is that it actually is very competitive. And it’s not just really about the cost itself that made me choose NCV. It’s being part of that community. When you try to sum up everything in terms of money dollar value, in the end it wouldn’t make much sense if you consider those things that couldn’t be bought with rent. So if cost is one of your major constraints of choosing an accommodation, I suggest you’d still look very much into choosing NCV, given that it offers so much more than what is shown in the bill.
I’m currently two months away from graduation and that already made me think about what I will really miss once I’m not here at NCV anymore. So what I think I will really miss is the people. I will miss the people I have already met but not just that. The people that I think I could have possibly even met. Being part of a community, that you can always meet and know other people from many different backgrounds, is always a very exciting story for me.
So I live in a studio, and my studio here is designed to be self-contained, which means I wouldn’t have to go out of my room to have any of my needs fulfilled. That being said, the studio has its own kitchen, which means I can cook my food anytime of the day but on top of this, I was very pleased to know that NCV actually has this meal plan where for 10 meals a week, you can just subscribe to that meal plan and choose between lunches and dinner 10 times a week the food you want to eat, served to you already. So that gives me already the best of both worlds.
What I really like about NCV is that it really values my independence and at the same time I am part of that community here at NCV. This means that NCV offers a lot of events, that are actually not required, but when you think about it, being not required makes you more curious and attend more to those events.
Most of these events are social in nature. So we have floor suppers. We have formal dinners every term. Some events are more spiritual in nature if you’re that type of person. So we have Bible studies. We even have a resident minister here. And some other events are more intellectual in nature. So we have research nights every Tuesday during regular terms and these research nights are events where scholars and students gather around to show their current thesis and other research, and show it to other people. Even though you may not be in that particular field, it gives you a broader perspective. So overall, the events here are really well-rounded and it’s up to you to choose what you want to attend.