Did you stay in your university town or did you never go back?

[JaimeParis]

Or what?!

I studied in Manchester for four years and only ever went back once to visit a friend about a year later. Most people on my course left too. In fact I ended up teaching in the same school in London as one of them. I know some people live in their university town for life. What did you do?

Many do - mine will let you into bars etc on campus but you need your library card for other areas!

This is the same with my DSs uni. He has a card that allows access into the buildings only during weekdays. But allowed the library on weekends.

In 1981-82 did a one-year training course for the industry that I wanted to get into, at what was then Preston Polytechnic. There was a recession at the time I qualified and it was clear that the north-west was going to bear the brunt of it, so I headed back to the south-east and started my career quite randomly in Epsom before moving farther out towards the Sussex coast.

I'm sometimes nostalgic for that last truly carefree year of my teens, but in the 42 years since that I've never felt the slightest desire to return to "Depreston" itself. Oddly enough, though, I've recently been looking into a distance learning course that I might study when I retire...and it turns out to be run by the University of Central Lancashire, as Preston Poly is now known.

20 years later I still live within walking distance of my uni. I didn’t want to go back home to my parents’ house and there were no jobs there so I stayed here.

I left my university city as soon as I graduated and never went back.

@FranksInvisibleLlama do you visit your old campus then?

I stayed for 15 years and then moved to London for work (career change). Have since moved out of London. It is my absolute favourite place in the world though and if I could live there I would. Some uni friends stayed, most left.

Never went back. It wasn't a happy time for me.