The Student Room Group

On campus or off campus?

I've applied to university and I'm not sure whether I want to live on or off campus for my first year. By off campus I mean student villages still owned by Universities just in a different place. I know it means travelling a bit but not sure if the social life is better?

Has anyone got a good list of pros and cons or has already lived in halls and regretted where they chose?
At Bath, for example, you can only live on campus for one year, and for the other years you have to find your own accommodation.

Being on campus was better for a number of reasons:

The different halls within minutes of eachother, and the neighbouring flats in your halls are really close. People have gone around putting post its up on the doors during the first few weeks inviting everyone to places, and after that people arrange things between themselves with the friends they've made, so it makes for having a great social life.

You don't have to wake up as early as you would for lectures if you were off campus. I was waking up at about 8:25 for 9:15 lectures last year, and now in the city I have to wake up at 7:30, and make lunch too! Whereas before I'd just pop back to my accommodation and make lunch then. For you this'll depend on the distance of the off-campus accommodation to the campus.

For the nights that the university runs you can walk home pretty easily and quickly.

You don't need to a buy a bus pass. Even with nights out and other things you'd be doing well to use the bus enough times to make it worthwhile. Heck, you can even walk to town here if you have the time. And the buses can get pretty packed depending on where you live, how they work etc.

That's all just for Bath, and you should look into it more once you know where you're going, but don't worry too much about it for now.

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