Hi, new here and hope this is in the right place. Thought i'd see what other students would think, as well as my parents so I can get a good idea of whether or not I'm thinking this through properly.
My home town is Stroud, and my Uni is just off junction 1 of the m32 in Bristol (UWE) - so its about 25 miles, 40/45 mins by car. Or I can do a 15 minute drive to my local commuter station (I say this because Stroud station has no direct link to Bristol - the other station I can go from is Cam and Dursley - its in the middle of nowhere but has free all day parking) then hop on the train from there which takes 20 minutes and drops me about a 15 min walk from campus. So that sets my options as far commuting goes..as far as I'm concerned its nothing outrageous. people commute much further distances each day!
Anyway my question.. I moved into halls about 4 weeks ago and while it seems like an alright experience, i'm not quite seeing it as the major life changing fun experience people make it out to be. I have worked full time for the past year and have been relatively independent while at home, so the whole looking after yourself thing is nothing new to me and I don't really feel as though I need to prove to myself and others that I can be independent because I know full well that I can be. I moved to halls because I thought its what people all did and didn't want to be the odd one out, but now I think about it is the pseudo independence and 5,600 charge for the 40 week privilege really worth it? When I can commute by car or If I fancied by train for a lot less, taking into account fuel for the week works out at 30 quid.
sorry..a bit more context, I also work part time still in my old Job who let me come back on saturdays, so I go home friday, work a 10 hour day saturday then head back sunday morning, so If I lived at home I would be able to pick up a few more hours, have money to spare and all the comforts of home as opposed to living on basically nothing, and having to work these weekends in order to be able to live in these halls. My maintenance pays for my rent and covers my 110 p/m overheads (car insurance, phone, gadget insurance, music streaming, netflix etc) but leaves little to spare.
With this in mind does it seem logical to try and leave halls and commute instead? I don't want to hear lots of people saying my social life will suffer as thats not what I'm interested in knowing, Im more concerned with the practicalities and if anyone here does commute, whats it like and does it harm your studies? Apologies for slightly miserable tone at times, just really unsure of what to do and can't help but think moving into halls was a bit of a mistake.