Will it be possible to commute to uni in the first year?

I live in North West London and have been accepted by Royal Holloway to study English in September. Does anyone know how many hours the lessons would be a week? It's quite a difficult situation at home as my family is heavily reliant on me, causing me to be reluctant to move out so is it possible to commute? It takes about 1 hour and 40min by train from here so can I do it or should I just live in accommodation. Has anyone done this before? Please help..

I live in North West London and have been accepted by Royal Holloway to study English in September. Does anyone know how many hours the lessons would be a week? It's quite a difficult situation at home as my family is heavily reliant on me, causing me to be reluctant to move out so is it possible to commute? It takes about 1 hour and 40min by train from here so can I do it or should I just live in accommodation. Has anyone done this before? Please help..

It's doable, but most people recommend having a commute of no longer than 30 minutes each way - so an hour's total travelling. The distance can really demotivate students -- if you only have one lecture that day, for example, come 6am some dreary December morning you aren't going to be inclined to travel all that way for one lecture -- and you might be disconnected from campus activities if you live that far out.

I would definitely recommend looking at accommodation if that's something you feel you can do. I'm also doing English come September, so hopefully I'll see you!!

Hi Jinkx Monsoon,

It does seem really demotivating as I love everything about Royal Holloway just the travel is a big issue. Your message did give me hope though that I could possibly do it, I just think I should man up and move out altogether.. Thank you so much for your advice, I just have no idea what to do. Will you be living in accommodation and if so, which one? x

Hi Lalaa64,

Congratulations on your offer to study English!

In terms of contact hours, you can check out the details of your degree programme here. Some students do manage to commute to their classes, and I think this really depends on the student and their situation. There will be events during Welcome Week specifically for commuting students, to allow you to meet other commuting students and get involved in other aspects of student life. Some students may set up car shares which can reduce costs and commuting time, so this could be something to look into.

I would really recommend having a think about what would be best for you. We do have some accommodation left, so if you were interested in living on campus I would think about applying for that as soon as you can!

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Summer

Hi Summer, thank you so much for replying! That link does help but it is a little difficult to understand - for example for the introduction to Medieval Literature it says 54 contact hours so is that for per month? Or how would it work? The idea of car sharing sounds interesting, do you know how I could look into that? Although it does seem as though living in accommodation has more pros than cons. I will make a decision tonight as to whether I will be moving out or not hopefully. Also, I just wanted to ask when would I begin living in the accommodation so I know how much time I have to prepare myself? x

I'll be in Wedderburn! ☺️

Honestly, I would recommend it, but if your home situation is complicated you should definitely weigh up the positives and negatives. Your health, safety, and happiness needs to come first.

Hi Lalaa,

I'm glad to help! I believe that this is contact hours per module per year!

In terms of car sharing, the Student Intranet does have a noticeboard which allows students to post various bits and bobs, so you could post on there at the start of term, or on the various Facebook groups to see if anyone is going the same way. There might even be some car sharing websites which could be worth looking into.

Living in Halls is a great experience, and does allow you to make that next step into independence. It's definitely possible to have a great student experience whilst commuting onto campus, but living in halls gives you that bit more time on campus to study or do extra society things. If you were to live on campus, many students who live locally do find that they can go home during the weekends.

Accommodation move in weekend is on either the 16th or 17th September, in preparation for Welcome Week starting on Monday 18th.

If you have any other questions, let me know!

Summer

Hi Summer,

Thank you so much for all the information it has helped me so much! I think it will be best if I do live in accommodation, so I'm going to apply for it now. I just wanted to ask about the finance - I've applied for the maintenance loan, but at the time I applied for the one living at home, so I'm going to change it to the one to living out inside London. So now when I apply for the accommodation, will it get paid for or how will it work with the loan? How long will the finance take to come as I will be moving in less than a month? Will the money go straight to the university or to me so that I will be paying weekly/monthly? I'm sorry to be bothering you with all these questions I know you must be busy.

Tayyibah

Hi Tayyibah,

I'm so glad you've found this helpful.

In terms of finance, you'll get the loan paid through to you, and then you'll have a bit of time at the start of term to pay your accommodation fees. You'll pay in termly installments to coincide with the loan payments. If you do have any questions about fees and finance the best people to chat to are our Fees and Finance team! You can email them at [email protected].

Do you know which halls you might want to live in? You can check out this nifty flowchart which can tell you more about each of the Halls.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Summer