Attending London Unis while living at home?

[HappyShoppingBag]

If you live in Greater London do you think your child still have a well rounded Uni experience if they continue to live at home while attending a central London Uni like UCL, Kings, Imperial etc? Can they still get just as involved with all the social gatherings etc if don't live in Halls but make the effort to join in? Seems from second year need to find own accommodation anyway? Any first hand experience that you can please share? Thank you x

No I don’t think it’s the same experience but it’s still a good experience. This is based on a family member. Student accommodation tends to be very central and you can do things off the cuff together in a way that isn’t really possible if you live further out. Also can’t do the very free and easy hanging out with friends.

But you can still make friends and socialise- it just takes time. And there are other benefits to living at home.

I would try to at least go to halls for first year when they are subsidized

This is good advice. It matter less in later years when friendships are established.

I don't think you can ever have the same experience living at home as you do living at university. I'm sure some students like it more living at home.

When I look back at my university years it's the time in my house with my flatmates that I remember most fondly.

Not really. Youngest son was at Greenwich and we live locally. He wasn’t fully immersed x

Lots of students are better off living at home. In plenty of countries that's normal. They can still go out, get involved, and have a great time.

British people pay millions yearly for this illusion that often shoddy university accommodation automatically enhances the student experience. If your university is in commuting distance, it's an expensive luxury and while some flourish in halls, many find them noisy, stressful and isolating.

Have a good look at what's available and what suits the individual. Don't believe anyone who tells you that you must (or must not) live in student accommodation. There's huge variation in how this works out for people.

Agreed. Thirty plus years later they are still my closest friends.

Students don't care that their accommodation is shoddy. There's more to life than the standard of your accommodation when you are nineteen.

I agree. I left Uni after the first year because I found living in student accommodation so stressful. I went to a different uni close to home the year later. I did a postgrad away from home and loved it, but I was a few years older by then.

Shabby is fine. Lack of daylight, paper-thin walls, aggressive or drugged up neighbours, constant noise at night are bad for most people, and many University halls will have some or all of these features. Residential building standards don't apply to student flats.

University students have never had worse mental health. Among the students I deal with, attendance and engagement are better among commuters. I wish that was because the others were just having too much fun together, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Many of them are overwhelmed by the challenges of university and finances while living away from home. And halls aren't built for sociability any more - security and privacy are priorities. They can be lonely places

Flatmates can be lovely. They can also be hell. There's no obligation to mix that experiment with a good education.

As I said, great for some people, but it's just not a necessity if you can live at home, and it not a key or pleasant part of university for lots of people. If in doubt I'd stay home in the first year if possible.

@Looksgood Obviously some students don’t make friends and have made a mistake to go into halls and with their choice of hall. The vast majority are perfectly ok though. If you only see distressed students, these are the minority that have not made the best choice for them. It’s likely other students are happy.

For the majority it’s a time to get on with life without parents looking over your shoulder. You can make decisions about what you eat. You can even eat baked beans for a week if you want. It’s a time to make mistakes and work out how to put things right. Obviously some struggle but for many it’s very much a time to grow up.

Parents worry about safety. Then dc make choices to please parents. Too many dc lack confidence so look for privacy. Instead of years ago when shared bathrooms and even rooms were the norm, we now have dc demanding en suite and cooking for one every night. My DDs didn’t feel like this and parents do need to help dc prepare for uni. Enhancing social skills and helping with confidence can ensure dc enjoy halls and make friends. If they can do this, halls are good. If not, it’s better to be at home than lonely in a hall.

I think you are right about the privacy issue, but universities build and upgrade to compete for what students want. The result can be very isolating.

I wouldn't try to put a proportion on this - maybe most students are better off in halls. Maybe not. But I very much dislike the idea that halls are a necessary part of the student experience. They are expensive, and for lots of people, they don't work. There is no particular need for students to live in halls at 18.

There are other ways to build independence: often much cheaper ways. And people develop at different paces, and that's not a failing. It is okay for students to live at home if that works for them and their parents (and their budgets).

Lots of kids are living at home now because they don't want the debt so there's that but they don't get the full experience. Some kids don't want to party or go out a lot anyway.

The main problem in establishing friends is when there's that opportunity to talk to people - waiting outside the lecture hall, waiting for things to start, leaving lectures, hanging out in the canteen or library - everyone is now on their phone so it's harder to make friends. Those in halls seem to fare better.

But the point of university is education and to get a degree. Not ££ for the "university experience" which often involves going out and getting drunk.

It depends on the student and the university experience they're looking to have. And probably also on their parents' expectations for the relationship with their young adult.

I do think living in halls can be overrated. I personally hated it. There was never a time when I wasn't hearing another human voice, for pretty much a whole year. The social space was dominated by a group.of boys whose favorite activity was sneaking up behind people, turning around and farting in their hair. There was loads of drama constantly about who was going to watch TV in whose room. It was exhausting. But I made great friends on my course and things got much better when I moved into rented accommodation with some of them. Which isn't the same as living it home, but does suggest that the halls experience isn't the best thing for every student.

Whilst it is interesting to debate halls v home and whether perceptions of their relative merits are shifting, I think mindset and having a bit of a plan can make a difference. If you plan to live out, then being willing to try out, and persist with, a range of societies and clubs may be important; and, at home, parents may need to think about how to recalibrate their relationship with their now adult children.

My personal perspective is slightly different. My DC went down the professional apprenticeship route and moved away from home to do so. They recognised that, particularly in the early years, they would be neither students or mid-twenties 'grown ups' and could fall between two stools socially. So they got involved in a range of local sports and volunteer activities, even if it meant getting out of their comfort zone initially. Recognising there might be issues, having a plan and persisting with that plan all helped.

@HappyShoppingBag I can't answer your question directly because although we started off thinking our son would be at home, he hasn't been. We're in SW London and he decided he wanted to go to UCL which is 1h+ commute. He lived in halls for first year, a stone's throw from uni, and had a great time. His course has a very high % of international students, who tend to stick together, so his friendships were mostly made through his hall accommodation and a sports society he joined - both an outcome of living in halls (as the sports venue was near uni).

There was a vague plan to live at home in later years, and he would have done if he hadn't got a good flatshare that we could afford, close to uni - it has been reassuring to know that home is there as a backup because the London rental market is shark infested.

He has done a lot of growing up since flatsharing, so that has been a positive experience for him.
We pay £900pcm + bills for the flatshare, near uni, but that is relatively cheap, through a private landlord, not an agent. Many students pay more or live in properties 30-60min away from uni, with commuting costs.

I think that’s the issue with London. Making friends for 2nd year flat share is slightly more challenging. There’s quite a big difference in incomes of families and some international students like similar students around them. So if you don’t have hall friends, your pool of flatmates can be quite small. Also some will need to be 30 mins away to get cheaper rents. It was always thus.

The purpose of uni isn’t just education. A student fully engaged will get a lot more than that out of it. Living with others and seeing the “world” from a different perspective is important too. Living a full life without parents hovering is totally worthwhile. Growing up and making decisions all can enhance a young persons outlook on life. These things are more difficult to do at home.

My eldest has lived at home and commuted to a London uni and my youngest will do the same starting in September.
It's not affected her experience, she has money, a warm clean home to study in and food in.
We are very easy going with her if she's out and her boyfriend often stays. She really enjoys coming home sometimes and just relaxing knowing all she has to worry about is her studying and job. She's not a huge extrovert though so is happy with it and my youngest has seen how positive it has been and has decided the same.

They'll also have less debt which is a good start for them

So cooking, cleaning, and all mod cons provided. Nothing else to do but study. I think others do so much more away from home. It’s the making of them.

The kids I know who are living at home tend to have jobs. They're studying, making money, socialising, going on holidays and will only come out with £30k tuition debt.
It's a different lifestyle and has its pros as well as it's cons.

I think that increasingly, the London university experience is very different from other places because so many of the students live at home. I live far from London and the general feeling among young people here is that London is not a great option unless you really want to do that particular course because so many of the students are living at home, or even if they are in halls still stuck to their old friendship circles and a lot of the students who don't live at home are very well off, so for those without much parental financial back-up it's harder to have a good social life.

I had a wonderful time 30 years ago, but unfortunately things have changed. My children are doing apprenticeships and probably won't go to university in the traditional sense, but I could not afford for them to live away from home. The gap between what they get in maintenence and the cost of rent is just too great. They would have to work a lot to help fill that gap . You are lucky you live in a city with some of the worlds best universities. For many leaving home for the experience is an unaffordable luxury.

DS has just finished first year at a London uni and has been in self catered halls. He loves it. Has friends from school around, and knows people at other unis… imperial, kings etc. He sees us every 3/4 weeks. He’s hoping to rent in Camden next year… not yet sorted 🙄 but we are the back up plan. After his third year abroad he thinks he will come home. He has a well paid part time job and is very happy. Other child has no interest in studying in london.

No, for me it takes away the biggest selling point of uni and, dare I say it, somewhat defeats the purpose. Not sure I'd really want my kids to go to Uni in London either, partly as we live near it but it's a different experience.

My son's friends are at UCL and Imperial and while they've enjoyed the course, they've found there isn't quite the same student community in smaller cities as everyone is quite dispersed (and quite a few live at home). I went to Durham (as does my son) and some people find it claustrophobic but I made a group of friends that are still my best friends 30 years' later.