This time last year, I was living in Leamington, with unreliable buses, with people I wasn't friends with, and travelling to Coventry about 3 times a week. It was definitely not the ideal situation and I'd only moved there because I was under the false impression that all my friends would be moving there too. 

After thinking it through, I decided that for the next academic year I would live alone in Coventry. So then began my search for a studio in Coventry. My main criteria were being:

• near the beginning of the bus route
• near the city centre where I often attend salsa classes and where my church is located,
• living somewhere well-priced with great facilities.

CODE ticked all these boxes for me. The building is practically right next to the bus station making my journey approximately 2-3 minutes from my room on the 5th floor (bearing in mind I always take the stairs) to the 12X which only takes about 15-20 minutes to get straight to campus. And trust me this has been tried and tested many times, as I often struggle to leave my room more than 5 mins before the bus! However, the bus runs every 10 minutes on weekdays so the wait is never long. 

Most of the restaurants and shops in Coventry centre are only a 5-10 minute walk making it easy for me to walk back from my salsa classes and evening church events. I never have to walk more than 15 minutes back and there's plenty of buses back to Pool Meadow if I didn't want to walk alone at night.

CODE was the most affordable studio accommodation I could find and boasts many amazing facilities included in rent. There's a :

• communal kitchen for hosting which I plan to use to host my friends for a potluck celebration post exams.
• cinema room and plenty of study spaces
• state of the art gym, and let me tell you as someone who doesn't like the idea of paying for the gym, this is a win-win situation for me. 
  
  However, something that always convinces my friends to come visit me is the pool table, foosball, and table tennis that you can play in the communal area.
  
  But my favourite facility to use, as a salsera, are the dance studios. They are a great place for me to practice by myself or I can even book a studio if some other members of the salsa society want a place to practice together.

I didn't know anyone else living in CODE when I booked it but there are various social events that take place where you can meet people from Chinese new year celebrations to a Barbie movie night, to a Wild West Welcome Party at the beginning of the year, making it super easy to make new friends in the accommodation.

So far I have thoroughly enjoyed my time living at CODE and am excited to live here again next year.