As you may have seen, student Sian Hodkin is blogging all this week, her latest article is about commuting to university. Here’s over to you Sian…
As I only live around forty five minutes from university, I decided to stay at home instead of forking out around £4000 – £5000 a year. I’m going to look at the pros and cons of commuting to university, so have a read before you commit to that student house!
Pros
- It is cheaper – I’ll start with the obvious one, I pay around £6.30 for a return train ticket; I go into university three days a week; that’s £18.90 on train fare a week. However, I travel during peak times meaning my fares are higher than usual so if I went an hour later it would be £3.00 cheaper (Don’t get me started, National Rail) This £18.90 is presumably cheaper than a weekly food shop for a house of four and I don’t have to fight anybody over a loaf of bread.
- Home comforts – I never realised just how much I rely on my home comforts to get me through the day. To come home and have my Mum stick the kettle on for me, or not to worry about food and electricity because it is always magically there!
- I have to go to university– I don’t know about anybody else’s parents, but mine force me to get up. I have stuck to the routine of getting up and going rather than messing around deciding whether to get up or not. There have been the odd times I have skipped but it’s very rare it’s from pure laziness. Getting into a routine also helps me during the summer too, it’s not a huge body shock when I have to get up for work; but of course it’s still not easy.
- Home friends/relationships – living at home means you still get to keep in touch with friends from home. I have friends who didn’t go to university so it’s so much easier to get together. I’ve also been in a relationship and we still see each other pretty regularly when work doesn’t get in the way!
Cons
- Travelling – train journeys are fun when they’re one off events; you get a little group of snacks together, a good read and your destination is usually pretty exciting. Train journeys are not fun when you’re travelling during peak times (curse you, 9am lectures) and you have to put up with people commuting to and from London. I’m a pretty good morning person, stick a cup of tea in me and I’m good to go, but even the nicest person can begin to hate the human race when you’re stuck with them at 8am, competing over seats that aren’t covered in used Starbucks cups.
- Travelling home – on the basis of the last point, travelling home is almost ten times worse than travelling to Sheffield. Sometimes it’s busier, people are usually angrier and you’re tired and grumpy and don’t want to deal with rush hour traffic.
- Going out– whenever I go out with my university friends I have to find a suitable home for the night, my last train is before 12 and I could not leave Leadmill or Corp that early – who even gets there before 12! – taxis cost a small fortune to make that twenty minute journey and I love my friends, but do I really want to make that ‘walk of shame’-style journey home? Trains induce hangovers, I’m sure of it.
- Convenience– if I want to go to the library for anything I have to make a whole day out of it, it’s going to take me at least two hours so I might as well make the most of it. Then my whole day turns into running around Sheffield for things that could have waited!
So there are my pros and cons, I do love living at home and never really regret (except when I’m in 6pm rush hour traffic). I think commuting is becoming more popular since tuition fees were raised and I think it should be seriously considered if you live a ten minute train journey away from University!
(Editor’s note – views expressed are Sian’s own – if you’d like any help or advice on any university issue, you can contact the Student Advice and Information team here at Hallam).