Just my 2 cents about accommodation, I lived with a guy on my course, and we picked up another person from a later course a few months in. We all found it handy living with other people in the same situation and could understand what we wanted to talk about when we got home :P Oh and the car pooling is handy and cheaper too.
We lived at Taylors Hill, which is nice enough, reasonably priced, and only about 20 minutes to the airport, and we didn't have to take any major freeways or busy roads, so we almost never had to worry about traffic. Taylors Hill to the city is about 30-40 minutes by car or train, but you'll be pretty busy at the college so don't expect to be out partying every weekend anyway :P