When choosing accommodation it is best you consider how this decision affects other aspects of your student life such as your social life. This article sheds some light on how accommodation influences who you socialise with. These scenarios only apply in your first year at university as afterwards, you will have already made friends with one or more groups of people and in most of the cases, you will stick to those.
In this case, your flat mates or neighbours will probably be first year students just like you. You will probably have pre-drinks at your place or theirs, go out together, eat together and study together in the hall’s library. If it happens that one of them does the same course as you and you get along really well then the chances are that you will stick to that person for a long time as you will have so many things in common and you will also have each other for support. However, there is no reason to exclude the possibility that you will not have any business with the people you will be surrounded by in university halls but, don’t wonder why they do not ask you to go out with them after a while.
If you have arranged to live there with some people you already know then the chances are that you will go through your first year making your friendships even stronger, although you will also get to know other people from different societies and from your lectures which means that you could end up with more groups of friends than you expected. This is good news in any case. If you, however, do not know the people you turned up to live with in the chosen private hall, then the same outcomes as in the first case (living in university halls) applies.
Living alone can definitely have its benefits: no arguments with messy people and some peace and quiet whenever you need it. Looking at it from a social point of view, this means that you have to throw yourself out there and find friends through social societies at University or part time work colleagues or from your student cohort in various lectures and seminars.
Having said this, your accommodation can influence your social start at university but your choice does not in any way bring with it any disadvantage from this point of view. Some people prefer to live with others and get to know each other bit by bit, others wish to go through their first experience of living away from home with friends they already have and know well and a few prefer to live alone. It is up to your personal preference which option most appeals to you, your social life is still there, just the stories of how you’ve met will be different.