Local Guides World
Photos
There are no photos for this place yet!
Reviews — 8
Ok
Great friends all round.
I have been there for 6 months, really good place to live full of students (most of them international/Erasmus) just pay attention to housing foundation ..
I hadn't planned on writing about my experience living in this joke of a kollegiet, but after being hit with almost 2000DKK in cleaning fees for water spots on the common kitchen sink, dust on a lamp in my bedroom I vacated over a month ago, and food of current residents being in the fridge, I couldn't hold back.
In terms of location, Signalhuset is the worst college you could stay in during your semester abroad in Copenhagen. From leaving your front door to Norreport station using the metro, you're looking at 30 minutes, and on bike 35 (google maps will tell you 23 mins, but this simply isn't true), which makes it just that bit too far to ride, especially in the rain. This drastically changes your lifestyle, as living closer to the centre of the city (eg Osterbro) you could do all commuting on bike, saving you money and giving a huge amount of freedom. Staying here you'll spend most of your semester commuting: If you study at any of the 3 northern campuses (North, Frederiksberg, City) your commute each way is 30 minutes minimum. If you head to class in the morning, come home to eat dinner, then head to the city and back for drinks one night you've just spent 2 hours of your day in transit. It adds up.
Being 1 stop from the end of the metro line also means 2 things: firstly, you expose yourself to being held up by maintenance works at any stop between Orestad and Norreport when commuting into the city centre, which is problematic when you want to arrive on class on time. Secondly, Orestad is essentially the very edge of civilisation in Copenhagen; you're isolated from the rest of the city, and to even claim living here is living in Copenhagen is a stretch.
Being a newly developed area means no bars and cafes.There's nowhere you and your friends can head for a study break unless you can accept losing an hour of your day to commute to the city centre and back. While there is Field's shopping mall across the street, you didn't come all the way to Denmark to spend 6 months hanging out in a mall, did you?
With close to 200 exchange students living in the college, all of the above might not have been an issue if there was enough fun to be had in the residence. But with the physical structure of the building set up to prevent almost all interaction between its inhabitants, you also do yourself a massive disservice socially by living here as well. When you enter the building, you go into a lift which opens at the entrance to your apartment and 1 other. All balconies are outdoor which means calling Signal a "hall of residence" is misleading, since you'll never see anyone hanging out on a balcony in the harsh cold except to smoke a cigarette, and a corridor party will never happen outside. There is 1 common room in the building on the ground floor: this has to be pre-booked at a cost of 400DKK, with a 1500DKK deposit. This not only prevents any spontaneous hangouts to occur, but also provides a deterrent to using the room. It's honestly sickening that in a place where you already pay rent and service fees every month, the ability to use a common room to meet other residents is held for ransom, and management lord it over you like a premium feature you have to unlock. With no common areas to hangout in, it's nearly impossible to meet anyone else in the building outside of your 4 bedroom apartment. As a result there is 0 sense of community living here.
So here you are, 30 minutes from Copenhagen with no bars and cafes around, waking up every morning to look out your window to a shopping mall, car park, and freeway, with no way to reach out to the fellow exchange students in your "college". Is this really how you want to spend your semester abroad? Choosing to live at Signalhuset had a really negative impact on my time in Copenhagen. Learn from my mistake, and don't do the same.
In terms of location, Signalhuset is the worst college you could stay in during your semester abroad in Copenhagen. From leaving your front door to Norreport station using the metro, you're looking at 30 minutes, and on bike 35 (google maps will tell you 23 mins, but this simply isn't true), which makes it just that bit too far to ride, especially in the rain. This drastically changes your lifestyle, as living closer to the centre of the city (eg Osterbro) you could do all commuting on bike, saving you money and giving a huge amount of freedom. Staying here you'll spend most of your semester commuting: If you study at any of the 3 northern campuses (North, Frederiksberg, City) your commute each way is 30 minutes minimum. If you head to class in the morning, come home to eat dinner, then head to the city and back for drinks one night you've just spent 2 hours of your day in transit. It adds up.
Being 1 stop from the end of the metro line also means 2 things: firstly, you expose yourself to being held up by maintenance works at any stop between Orestad and Norreport when commuting into the city centre, which is problematic when you want to arrive on class on time. Secondly, Orestad is essentially the very edge of civilisation in Copenhagen; you're isolated from the rest of the city, and to even claim living here is living in Copenhagen is a stretch.
Being a newly developed area means no bars and cafes.There's nowhere you and your friends can head for a study break unless you can accept losing an hour of your day to commute to the city centre and back. While there is Field's shopping mall across the street, you didn't come all the way to Denmark to spend 6 months hanging out in a mall, did you?
With close to 200 exchange students living in the college, all of the above might not have been an issue if there was enough fun to be had in the residence. But with the physical structure of the building set up to prevent almost all interaction between its inhabitants, you also do yourself a massive disservice socially by living here as well. When you enter the building, you go into a lift which opens at the entrance to your apartment and 1 other. All balconies are outdoor which means calling Signal a "hall of residence" is misleading, since you'll never see anyone hanging out on a balcony in the harsh cold except to smoke a cigarette, and a corridor party will never happen outside. There is 1 common room in the building on the ground floor: this has to be pre-booked at a cost of 400DKK, with a 1500DKK deposit. This not only prevents any spontaneous hangouts to occur, but also provides a deterrent to using the room. It's honestly sickening that in a place where you already pay rent and service fees every month, the ability to use a common room to meet other residents is held for ransom, and management lord it over you like a premium feature you have to unlock. With no common areas to hangout in, it's nearly impossible to meet anyone else in the building outside of your 4 bedroom apartment. As a result there is 0 sense of community living here.
So here you are, 30 minutes from Copenhagen with no bars and cafes around, waking up every morning to look out your window to a shopping mall, car park, and freeway, with no way to reach out to the fellow exchange students in your "college". Is this really how you want to spend your semester abroad? Choosing to live at Signalhuset had a really negative impact on my time in Copenhagen. Learn from my mistake, and don't do the same.
If you're through Housing Foundation you already pay almost double the regular price, but that's still OK. The problem however is with the return of the deposit, not only I paid 750DKK for "cleaning at the end of stay", but also got charged ~600DKK extra for "extra cleaning", even if I spent one afternoon cleaning up.
Very good college. Inexpensive rooms. Laundry. Supermarkets all around. Close to Metro train station.
Very nice Kollegium