Did you go to Royal Holloway? Did you like it?

[amigababy]

DD is looking at RH for Psychology. We went to the Open Day and both of us loved it and could see how it would suit her personality (the place) and what she wants to do post degree (the course)
Has anyone been there and what were your experiences? Did you live in the main building or one of the modern blocks?
thanks in advance.

I was there in the 90's. Stayed in the main building (Founders) and loved it. Liked the campus atmosphere & the feel of staying in a historic building with quads etc. Only thing I slightly missed was that London feels a long way away & you don't necessarily get the bigger name acts coming for ents.

Waves at Bean - guessing you there when I was...same yr of birth! I loved it there.. I was in Kingswood in the first yr (off campus) and liked that we 'went home' at the end of the day and had our own little community. I found it quite quiet to start with - lots of people went home at the weekends in the first yr but this eased off and I found friends who stayed all term. I would say go for it!

I thought it was a prison! lol

I've been wavering as to whether to post. My son left there last year and my overall impression of the place is not great.

It has positives eg Wow factor main building, some great staff, some depts have fantastic employment prospects.

But it is run very much as a business and the favoured clients are overseas students. There is a very wealthy set of home and overseas students (the university has its own polo team) with the average student being from a very comfortable background. Everything is expensive. There is nothing wrong with any of this but it does contribute to a rather rarefied atmosphere.

The campus empties at the weekend and it is much quieter socially than most universities I have experience of (about 6). And there is no teaching in many/most/all departments apart from a couple of revision sessions in the third term so many students stay at home then too. The girl to boy ratio is very uneven.

The accommodation gives you plenty of choice. The new halls are like hotels with double beds and en suites. Founders is cheaper and scruffy but sounds like it fosters a good atmosphere.

I've heard that the Psychology Department is well respected.

Good luck to your daughter.

My niece has just graduated from there and seems to have enjoyed it. A lot of the students do seem to be quite well heeled though.

I visited it a lot in 1996 as my ex bf went there. The campus is dead at weekends. There was (might be different now) very little to do in Egham. BF didn't like it very much but he was only there a year doing an MSc. He preferred Portsmouth where he did his undergraduate degree. The course however was excellent and he has a decent career as result.

Just to go off on a slight tangent, both DS's went to University of Nottingham and lived in different halls on the main campus for their first year and both said the weekends were very quiet in their first year because many people either went home or went to see friends at other universities, so I suspect that RH is not unusual in that respect.

People do tend to go there as a back up if they could not get into better places. One of my children had it as their back up but went to Bristol University. Well heeled? May be - if it was a back up for a private school child I suppose that comment above would be consistent with that.