City or campus uni?

If you want to experience the social side of Uni life like bars and clubbing, Birmingham is there for you. BCU or UOB, your choice. Have you gone to any Open days or summer schools for your uni offers?

isnt Birmingham dangerous

Thanks for your reply, yeah I’ve been to open days for all of my choices and to be honest I liked the look of all of them, I’m just not sure where I’d rather live. Would you say Birmingham is good for making freshers feel at ease? A lot of reviewers said they didn’t feel very welcome when they started (and that the SU wasn’t great?)...

I think for shy people it will be quite hard to make them feel at ease especially since clubbing will be one of the major way to meet people there. It's better if you already know someone in your course or in Bham Uni (any uni tbh) But you'll probably make friends on your course and you'll feel more welcomed there.

Hi, I'm new here so I'm not sure how this works!

Basically, I've been receiving uni offers lately and I'm torn as to what kind of place I'd actually like to study in. I'm really shy and not currently interested in the social aspect of uni (bars, clubs etc.), so at the moment I'd be inclined to go for a quiet campus uni like Royal Holloway (where I've been made an unconditional offer), but my concern is that I won't get the full 'uni experience' if I carry on keeping to myself all the time, and if I do come out of my shell more I'm worried I'll get bored in a tiny campus uni. I've also been offered a place at KCL, which has a great location in central London, but I think that my shyness will either mean that I'll be completely overwhelmed or can't find anything to do that I'll enjoy, however I'm tempted to throw myself into the deep end and see what happens - I'll either find my way or absolutely hate it! I've also been offered a place at Birmingham uni, which seems like a nice balance of campus and city life, but I've read some really bad reviews about it which are giving me second thoughts...

Any advice would be great (especially from RHUL / KCL / Birmingham students or alumni) as I might be beginning to overthink all this!

Thanks!!

Hi ayylmao,

It's great to see that you're thinking about where you're going to be happiest to study.

In my experience (I graduated from Royal Holloway last year) the campus style offers you the best of both worlds. When I first started I was nervous of what I perceived to be "uni life", and that I would constantly need to be socialising and going out. My actual experience is so far from that - during Welcome Week I spent the whole time attending comedy evenings, having quiet movie nights with some people from my course, or just relaxing in my room or in the shared pantry. I found that whenever I needed a break, my room was the perfect place to go back to and everyone understands needing your own space for a bit.

As time went on, I joined loads of societies and got involved with so many different things that I was constantly up to something (if I wanted to be). The great thing about it being a campus was that you always knew someone, and often your friends from your course would somehow seem to know your friends from Halls. Being outside the city meant that I always had somewhere I could go for a bit of peace and quiet, but when you're walking across campus you're going to know about ten different people walking past, and you can always find something going on.

I hope that helps, but if you have any other questions about Royal Holloway, please do let me know!

Summer

P.S. Congratulations on your unconditional offer - that's amazing!

Hi Summer, thanks so much for your reply - you've actually answered a lot of other questions I was going to ask about Royal Holloway! At this point I've been mostly ignoring league tables and looking for somewhere where I'd actually like to study, and RHUL sounds like the kind of place I'd really enjoy!
I did have a few more questions about it though if you wouldn't mind answering... I've seen that the uni is more or less in the middle of nowhere, with even tiny Egham (which seems to have very few shops / cinemas / things to do) being a fair walk away, would you say that this was an issue for you or was everything you wanted on campus? Also, RHUL say on their website that cars can't be parked on site for longer than a certain period of time (I'm assuming this applies to student cars), I find this odd as surely lots of students want to be able to have their cars at uni as they must be very convenient, do you know if this is the case or if there is a way to bring your car with you? Finally (for now!), I'd really like to live in Founders hall in first year as, since I'll be doing psychology, I doubt I'll be there much otherwise. I'm slightly confused as to how accommodation works, can you specifically request to stay in a certain hall or do you simply state the type of room you'd like to have (i.e. shared / single / ensuite / etc.) and then have a hall allocated to you?

Sorry for the long reply - I probably have more questions that I'll need to ask later as RHUL is probably my top choice at the moment!

Thanks!

Hey Ayylmao,

During my first term at Royal Holloway, I barely left campus at all because there was always stuff going on around the campus. Due to the nature of a campus university, there's such a hub of activity focused around the campus. When you do venture out, Egham High Street is about a ten-fifteen minute walk down the hill (or you can hop on the bus), and Englefield Green is about five minutes around the corner from the top of campus. Both Egham and Englefield Green have small shops, cafes, restaurants and things like hair dressers, and there's a Tesco, Waitrose, and Iceland down in Egham for your bigger grocery shops. You'll find certain little gems which are essential to student life at Royal Holloway.

If you ever wanted a day out shopping or to watch a movie, Staines is your best bet! There's a huge Vue cinema there, all the restaurants you can imagine, and it's only a 6 minute train journey away from Egham station. Then of course you have London which is about 40 minutes away and has everything you could imagine. I can't stress just how easy the journey into London is - I got some great work experience in London during my third year and commuted there three days a week. In terms of staying in London until quite late, the last major train back to Egham leaves Waterloo at around Midnight, but I ever missed that I would just get the tube to Heathrow airport and then a bus or taxi back to Egham (much cheaper than a taxi all the way from London!). There are so many other lovely areas around (Windsor is pretty close by, Reading is accessible by train) and places like the Windsor Great Park will become like a second home, especially during the summer.

In terms of cars, because of the amount of public transport I never really felt like I needed to have a car with me. Parking permits are only given to students who commute to university from outside a certain radius, or those students who live in Kingswood 1 or 2, so unless you lived in one of these Halls you wouldn't be able to bring a car onto campus. Like I said though, I didn't really feel like I was missing out on anything by not having a car. With travel cards in particular, getting the train becomes cheaper than driving and you don't have to worry about becoming the designated driver to every day out.

Founders is such a gorgeous Hall - have you had a chance to go into the rooms? The accommodation application system works via bands. So a single room in Founders might be band J, whereas a room in Williamson, Tuke, and Butler might be band A. Each band will take into account different contract lengths and whether the room is shared or not. When it comes to applying, you need to put all the bands down in the order you'd like that band (so, band J might be your first choice, and band A might be second). You're not necessarily guaranteed your first choice, but our team do try to work it out so that everyone's needs are met as best as possible.

I hope that helps! As always if you have any questions just let me know. You could also introduce yourself on our 2018 applicants thread to chat with some other people doing your course!

Summer

Hi Summer, thanks for the info - again this is all really helpful! It sounds like there's plenty to do on campus and that the uni isn't as isolated as some reviews made it seem. I'm still slightly confused about the halls situation, is it possible to request room bands that are only in a certain hall and hope for the best or do you need to choose a range bands from different halls? I ask because I loved founders when I visited it and, to be honest, wasn't particularly taken by any of the others (except maybe gowar and wedderburn, which seem very expensive). I was also wondering, despite the fact that I'm not overly bothered about league tables, what RHUL's reputation is like among employers? I've got offers from KCL and Birmingham which are very well known and prestigious, but I'm not entirely sure how RHUL would look on a job application, most people that I talk to have never heard of it..!

Thanks!

Hi Ayylmao,

Each band in our accommodation application is its own Hall (with the exception of Williamson, Tuke, Butler, Wedderburn and Gowar which are grouped together due to the similarity of the rooms). Last year there were actually three bands which were in Founder's, with each room being slightly different (one was a large room, one was a regular room, and one was a shared room). You could put all three Founder's bands as your top three choices - for example:

1st choice: Band F (Founder's large)
2nd choice: Band J (Founder's regular)
3rd choice: Band L (Founder's shared)
4th choice: Band A (Williamson, Tuke, Butler Wedderburn, Gowar)
5th choice: Band D (George Eliot)

In terms of reputation, Royal Holloway is a part of the University of London, which means that when you graduate you graduate with a degree from the University of London. This is particularly true of Psychology, as our Psychology department is really highly esteemed! (Another bonus of being part of the University of London is access to Senate House library in London!)

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Summer