The Student Room Group

Question for people who moved out of London/Multicultural area to University

For those who were in a predominantly white space for the first time or moved to the North from the South for example, did you have a hard time fitting in and finding your type of people? Did you change your way of speaking? For example if you speak MLE or have some other type of dialect. I never felt like I was being myself, I know we all adapt but it tired me out so much, I knew if I wasn't a certain way I wouldn't get on with anyone, but I hung out with everyone, just never really caught their vibes. I'm wondering how everyone else went about it and wanna know if i'm not the only one, since other Londoners didn't seem to have an issue?
Reply 1
Went from London to way up north. I do speak MLE as well but it's not really excessively used by me anyway, so that wasn't something I felt the need to change. A lot of students might soften their accents slightly just to make sure everyone can understand them so it's not like it's just me doing that.

I am the only person in my household who isn't white. It doesn't feel as terrible as it sounds and they're nice people (I might have gotten lucky, to be fair). Maybe it doesn't bother me because I grew up always spending time with people from different cultures, so I'm used to "adapting" in some way or another. Sometimes it feels like they tiptoe around some topics when I'm around but I can tell they mean well and just don't want to offend in any way.
Reply 2
Original post by nc127
Went from London to way up north. I do speak MLE as well but it's not really excessively used by me anyway, so that wasn't something I felt the need to change. A lot of students might soften their accents slightly just to make sure everyone can understand them so it's not like it's just me doing that.

I am the only person in my household who isn't white. It doesn't feel as terrible as it sounds and they're nice people (I might have gotten lucky, to be fair). Maybe it doesn't bother me because I grew up always spending time with people from different cultures, so I'm used to "adapting" in some way or another. Sometimes it feels like they tiptoe around some topics when I'm around but I can tell they mean well and just don't want to offend in any way.

you probably got lucky, how and where did you meet your friends? Man, I wish I could do uni all over again. I wasn't myself at all and didn't enjoy myself but I guess thats my own bad.
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 3
I'm from London too, and go to uni in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My university is literally ranked #1 as most white people who attend the uni lol. I don't speak MLE since I grew up in Kensington, though I have friends who do so I've picked up a few things here and there. But it's competely different for me in Belfast because of the whole history of Ireland (political fight between the Irish and the English because England treats Ireland like **** and then it progressed to Protestant and Catholic thing idk), my accent is considered as posh English so it was really hard to make friends with the locals.

I found other londoners and people from parts of England who treated me normal but I was definitely shoved into the "posh" category just because of my accent. I couldn't even hang with the posh kids because I grew up in council housing and literally have nothing in common with them besides the way I talk. It was only until second year I found my tight group of friends, suprise suprise they were all people of colour too and international students lol.
Even in ACS all the students were international straight from Africa so I heard there was a culture clash between them and black UK students.

Ngl, it was only when I went on placement and was with other locals in the same work situation that I acc made white Irish friends. And even they say the first time they met me they thought I was going to be uptight. Sometimes it takes more than just one convo to see if you vibe with them or not.

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