I studied at Exeter and had an overall great experience. It’s a lovely small city that feels rural. The green space was one of the things I loved immediately. Glad to hear the pool is there still too.
There is a variety of student accommodation, from catered halls to self catering flats and these range in size, cost, feel and geographical location around the campus. St Luke’s is across town from the Streatham Campus and its own little community but it’s still within striking distance of all the stuff in town.
It's easy to walk almost everywhere - I got around a lot on foot. Thinking about it I don’t think I ever used the buses but there is a good public transport system.
There were plenty of societies at the university and loads of stuff outside university (for example I joined a local drama group over near St Luke’s) and the night life was decent. Plenty of pubs and a few clubs. Regular gigs/themed nights at the ‘Lemmy’ on campus, exhibitions and performances at the whatchamacallit (sorry!) on Gandy Street and indie films shown at The Picture House.
Cathedral Square and the Quay both lovely places to hang out. As is the area Topsham. There was a pub crawl called the Topsham Ten - it’s probably still a thing. That was fun in summer.
When I was there Exeter was considered quite ‘sloaney’ but I thought it was lovely and diverse and everyone was very friendly and mostly down to earth.
I was a poor northern kid - first from my family to go to university- and I absolutely loved my time at Exeter. Loved my course, made some good friends, found the staff great and very supportive and came to love life in the South West.