Pros and cons of commuting from home to Uni

[circular]

Pros & cons of commuting to Uni?
anyone's DC commuting from hone, or thinking of doing so?

DD1 (yr12) starting her search, saying she does not want to leave home. Not interested in the social side of things, just wants to get on with her course without distractions and keep her home comforts.

There ate several choices within an hour
commute, similar to my work journey, so realistic from transport point of view.
Although may not be the most suitable courses for her.

Pros I can think of are cost savings and no risk of homesickness.
Cons are missing out on student life, travelling more than necessary, less likely to study at home.

We are starting our visits soon, looking further afield to begin with,

I went to Uni 'at home' in London, about 1h commute. The 1st year I lived at home, but 2nd and 3rd years I lived in a student house about 20mins walk from Uni. Was actually closer to Uni than the official student residences!

I was (still am!) a Good Girl. Thought I would be perfectly happy staying at home. But it turned out that I needed to live out in order to change my mindset - to grow up and take charge of myself. At home it was like I was still a little girl with homework to do and friends to play with. I don't think my parents were stifling me - I had had a year between school and Uni, when I was a waged adult, and they did not police my activities in any way - but the safety net was all too obvious all the time.

Living out I had to look after myself far more actively. Nobody reminded me to study. Nobody waited up for me at 2am. They were still only a phone call away, and I could visit whenever I wanted. I'm socially awkward, so by living in a communal house I learned more about getting on with people than I would have done living with my parents.

IMO living out was definitely worthwhile.

One of the reasons my son didn't move away was the problem of sharing in the 2nd year , he is a bit OCD and cannot live with mess/ washing up / wet towels etc .He is also not a 'party' animal and I think the first time a drunk housemate threw up he would have moved into a hotel !

DPotter I don't know what OP's daughter wants to do (ie if she wants to tech the subject of music at school, or if she wants to be an instrumental teacher), but you don't need a PGCE to be an instrumental teacher, not even the ones who go into schools.

Circular Durham don't formally teach her instrument, but then it's not a performing degree. BUT there is a top class teacher locally (DD1 has a nyro friend who has gone there to read history but his plan is to do postgrad at one of the conservatoires so he is keeping up his lessons obviously). So Durham is a possibility (I have a work colleague who has a daughter reading music there, she is having a wonderful time). If you want I can find out more about the teacher. It won't be an option for DD1 though because she is so nesh and it is just TOO far away for us.

Add Cardiff to your list. :)

Durham is on the main train like though so it's only about two hors to Kings Cross.

I think there's an awful lot of value in moving away for uni.

Learning to live with others, dealing with landlords, looking after yourself, having to be self motivated to do everything... they're all valuable life skills that aren't learned at home.

It should be noted that not all courses have a social element - mine really doesn't. Due to the structure of the degree, the number of optional modules, and having lots of different seminar groups, plus a distinct lack of group work... you never see the same people twice. So I'm quite a solitary creature at uni, despite having a very active social life that stemmed from moving into halls.

For what it's worth, I have quite a few friends who are from the local area who have moved into halls for first year (my uni allows this). Only one has chosen to move home again, and the rest have moved into shared houses with friends for second and third year. Clearly they think that moving out has been worth it.

One of my friends has a son in his first year and he is commuting.

I keep having to (well I don't have to but I'm an interfering cow) tell her not to do things.

I was talking to them both and said to her son something about him moving out next year and sharing with friends, his mum's reaction was, "But who will do his ironing?"

I went to uni late and a lot of students were commuting from home, not sure if it is social reasons or economical reasons but a lot of the Asian girls still lived at home. This did not stop them going to the pub at lunchtime.

I also taught an Indian lady English at the same time and she had the attitude that her children's 'job' was to go to school/college/uni and she would feed and clothe them until they left home. I don't know if this is typical.

I think it must be more difficult to break that child/parent thing. It must be tempting to say why aren't you studying?

But, things are changeable, people move into and out of halls and from their parents to shared houses and back.

One thing to consider is that universities do have evening lectures, at one stage I had a morning lecture and an evening lecture, because I was close (went to uni in my 30s so had my own place) I could go home in the afternoon and then go back for the 6-9pm lecture.

Another is will you be able to cope with her coming home or even leaving to go get books at 3am? Can you bite your tongue when she appears in a skimpy outfit for a fancy dress party or decides to go away for a weekend just before exams?

I could not have gone to uni and lived at my parents' mainly because my mum does not get that uni is not school. She would have expected me to get up every morning and go to uni, to come home at 5pm and do 'home work'.

A lot of students are staying home for a year or two because of the costs, I don't think that is a problem. I think it is the family/home dynamics that can be.

I commuted for a year of my degree. The biggest issue I had was definitely group work! Everyone wants to meet up to do it when you're not there or when it will be difficult for you to be there. Some people were understanding and others weren't.
I found needing books annoying when at home too.
Making friends is pretty impossible but doesn't sound like your dc will mind that.
It can be lonely. You see everyone talking about going out etc and you feel different.
Big gaps between lectures is a nightmare. One of the days I had a lecture from 9am til 10am and then nothing until 6pm to 7pm! so had to hang about uni all day. Everyone else would go home but I couldn't. I would do work in the library but that's a long time.
The positives were that I felt happier living with my family, I kept a much closer relationship with my bf and friends at home. I didn't have to live somewhere potentially horrible with noisy people I don't get on with and It was much cheaper.

Hi circular

There are plenty of London students, mosly from BME backgrounds, who live at home and commute to university in central London. Even with the commuting costs, it saves a lot of money.

The main problem, though, will be that to get the most out of a music degree you really have to take part in ensembles, and these rehearse and perform at night, often until quite late. Unless your DD is prepared to do an awful lot of late-night journeys after long and exhausting days, she really should live away from home closer to campus.

By 2nd and 3rd year she might have made friends she can crash overnight with though, so I guess if she can put up with a late night commute for some time it'll work out eventually.

We live in London and like you found that there were many suitable courses within a hour's travelling distance on the Tube. However, as you say, the London halls were v expensive, flats in years 2 and 3 more so and people say it also lacks the campus feel of more northerly Unis.

When I asked the staff at Imperial College (in Kensington, don't ya know) where students live in their second and third year he talked about parts of (non-trendy) East London which my ancestors clawed their way out of!

DS1 chose Manchester as the living expenses were much cheaper (accommodation, food, everything) and it's only two hours on the train from London. Easy to come home for the weekend. Birmingham is an even shorter distance on the train.

40 years ago, my DH (a Londoner) spent the first year of Uni at home in London and the next two in halls. He always regretted that first year as it made it so difficult to make friends when you constantly have to keep an eye on the time of the last tube train home.

At 16 she is understandably nervous but in a couple of years she make think differently. She will be able to apply for a handful of Unis so why not decide on a mixture of locations and give her choices and therefore some time to mull it all over.

Also try and get her to speak to some current students of these places if you can find any. Maybe she has some music school connections that can help here?

Unexprcted Yes it does seem like that with music. Although her instrument can ostracise her slightly so she dies really need to do her homework.
I have asked her if she had thought about a smaller campus and/or seaside setting, but she is unsure of where she would prefer to live. She doesn't exactly live Londin either, although we have always lived near and she had been used to getting around London by herself and with friends for 2 or 3 years now.
Not scared of 'big towns' or change, was one of only 2 or 3 in her friendship group to change schools for 6th firm and has settled in well, knowing just one other person.

Just not keen on living away, and hates the idea of flat sharing in yr2.

*Xosnnon^ Thanks for the tip about Durham. Reading between the lines, that may be too non-performing. She does want something where she can chose as many performance modules as possible, and must allow performance instead of extended essay dissertation. Written work not strong. I think she had already been put off Manchester as they want at least B in Eng Lang GCSE (which she scraped in yr10) so thinks it will be heavier on essay writing. Thats also one she had not yet checked yet for instrument.
She liked the look of the Cardiff course, but also thought too far.

Interestingly, their careers person at school asked them to sign on and complete the ,'Unifrog' registration. when she had to narrow shortlist down to 5, dropped those that were furthest away. So Leeds wone over York. Seemed a bit of a waste of time as some of the information seemed out of date, especially accommodation costs. One thing it did show her though, was that there were only 2. commutableUnis she would consider, and one is probably out of her league academically.

Pirate Panda I'm probably being thick here, but what's BME?. Understand completely about the late travel. At night, we are only 20 to 30 min drive away, so I can see Dad succumbing to plenty of phone calls to pick her up.

Sashh Can completely relate to what you say, hard now to back off whenU think she should be doing homework. Winds me up no end when she appears to do the bare minimum but still gets reasonable grades. Not sure the family want 3 or 4 extra years of that. Of course, when I tell her that, she just days 'I know you want me out...'

As other say the independence wll be a great lesson.
But at the end of the day, it mudt be her decision, which I suspect will have to come down to best course choice. And that could well change too in the next 18 months as WR don't really know how A levels will pan out. She had already changed her mind in the subject she thinks she will drop after AS

I think it depends on the person, tbh.

DSis lived at home and went to the local University, while I went away and lived in halls. She still had the social life that suited her, and, tbh, I think was perhaps more mature and capable for her years than I was at that age. On the other hand, she had a part-time job which demanded that she behaved in a professional way, in a way that my part-time jobs didn't.

BME = black and minority ethnic

Just a minor point - but some universities don't operate on a 9-5 basis anyway. When I was teaching, I needed to give students feedback asap after marking their essays, and so they all saw me in one day after class. That meant that, usually, someone ended up with the slot at 6 or 6.30. I would not have been particularly chuffed with a student who regularly insisted they couldn't make it. There are also evening lectures on occasion.

Communting any great distance would painfully long days, I think, and I would find it difficult to work efficiently while hotdesking in a perhaps not always very quiet computer room/trying to find a seat in the library.

(Sorry! Jargon...) BME = black and minority ethnic.

LRD I think most lecturers do try to understand and make allowances. If someone was commuting would you not have tried to make to easier for them if you could?
My lecturers were very understanding when I commuted, other students not so much when it came to group work. But yes your right sometimes there are evening lectures which are difficult if commuting.

Thants, when I was teaching, I was commuting for about four hours myself. I understand it's tough.

Yes, I would have tried to make things easier - and I did, and also for students who had paid work commitments. But there are limits to what's possible, and you have to be fair, I think.

None of my students wanted the 6.30 slot. And 6.30 is really not very late. It is a perfectly reasonable time to expect people to be working. Often, special lectures were held even later.

It is a difficult issue, but I think it's not really ok to say 'well, I'm commuting, the rules should be special for me', because everyone will have one reason or another why they would like the rules to be special. What do you say to the person whose parents don't happen to live within easy travel of a university? Is it somehow unfair they can't live at home, or is that just how it goes?

We have a number of universities close to us and my DD wanted to go to one of these. She started in September and, although we discussed living at home, she decided in the end that she would live out in the first year and move back in the 2nd and 3rd. This is mainly to save money as it is extortionate. She also plays an instrument, and although they have practise rooms at the university she does play in her halls. She just tells the other people in her flat that she is going to play and they are fine with it. I am sure that the others won't care about playing. What's 30 mins of listening to an instrument, when people are coming home at 4 am and banging on your door!

She is absolutely loving her time in halls so I am glad that she is there. She is still happy about coming home in year two. By the way, we probably live about 2 miles and they still gave her accommodation. She was worrying that she might not make friends and being able to live in halls meant that it was one less worry for her.

Interesting about the possibility off late lectures. though I would suspect in a london, most would be commuting to some extent. An its possibly safer going to the nearest tube be station than having a 20 minute walk home.

Provided we are not talking about after 10:30pm when travel gets a bit more difficult.

figroll that sounds a good plan, though I suspect you are possibly not talking about an inner London Uni, as I thought most prioritise those living outside the M25.
Did your DD know sh would ge accommodation when she applied, or was she just lucky there was something available?
Agree, even the noise from DDs instrument is more pleasant than late night drunken noises.

At my university the core working day is 9-6. There are loads of events in the early evening, and some optional modules run then, but nothing compulsory can be scheduled then. Nor is it acceptable to have office hours at that time.

One of the reasons for this is that university nursery does not open in the evening so it is unreasonable to expect people to be available then.

Both universities where I work have tons of guest speakers/meetings/social events in the evenings.

It would be a real shame to miss out on that aspect.

cream - I believe you're not entitled to require them in after 6.30 here. But it is a concern, because it is not great if people miss the optional stuff simply because they've not been aware it'd be an issue, and have therefore arranged to commute.

At my daughters university lectures are held regularly until 8pm.

I've regularly taught until 7 or 7:30 pm. As i rarely leave the office before 7pm it makes no odds, and means i can fit in seeing students. We currently have a long-distance commuting student who is coming in late and leaving early, and it's not going to end well. But it's his decision. We've advised against it, but he's adamant ...

DD2 had lectures until 7 one day a week and until 6 on the other 2 days. She only had lectures 3 days a week but had a lot of work to do in her 2 days of well she did after the first year anyway, she couldn't commute from home as the uni was 3 hours away but she wouldn't have wanted to anyway. DD1 could have lived at home but decided to go into halls as she said she wanted to get more into uni life and be more independent. DD3 who started uni this year is at least 4 hours drive away and I have found although she's only been gone for about 5 weeks she is already more grown up then she was when she was a t home.