Missing lectures in 3rd year due to commuting?

Currently a 2nd year student, I relatively enjoy my course but my uni environment depresses me so much and I find I work & feel better at home. I've been living at uni for 1st and 2nd year and barely attended lectures due to my mental health slipping but still been getting fairly good grades. I've been thinking of commuting from home for 3rd year, it'd be just over 2 hours on the train but I wouldn't be going in every day as in third year most of the work is dissertation based. Even though I'd be away from uni I think I'd work better than I do now, especially because closer to home I'd have access to more resources relating to my dissertation anyway. I just don't know if it's worth it because some people say third year is more intense and I'd like to get a 1st, or at least a 2:1 so I don't know if it'd be better to be closer to uni facilities (even though I'd only be using the library as my degree is essay based). I'd really appreciate some general perspective, thanks.

When you say "it'd be just over 2 hours on the train" -- do you mean it would be 2 hours in each direction (so 4 hours in total); one 1 hour in each direction (for 2 hours total per day)?

How long with your door-to-door journey be (i.e. from closing the front door of your house to sitting down in a lecture theatre)? That would include your travel time from home to the railway station, and from the station at the other end to the university.

Do you know that most of the work in the 3rd year is dissertation-based? Have you checked your course's structure to be sure that's the case?

There's a bit of a contradiction when you say "closer to home I'd have access to more resources relating to my dissertation" and then, when talking about uni facilities you say "I'd only be using the library as my degree is essay based".

Currently a 2nd year student, I relatively enjoy my course but my uni environment depresses me so much and I find I work & feel better at home. I've been living at uni for 1st and 2nd year and barely attended lectures due to my mental health slipping but still been getting fairly good grades. I've been thinking of commuting from home for 3rd year, it'd be just over 2 hours on the train but I wouldn't be going in every day as in third year most of the work is dissertation based. Even though I'd be away from uni I think I'd work better than I do now, especially because closer to home I'd have access to more resources relating to my dissertation anyway. I just don't know if it's worth it because some people say third year is more intense and I'd like to get a 1st, or at least a 2:1 so I don't know if it'd be better to be closer to uni facilities (even though I'd only be using the library as my degree is essay based). I'd really appreciate some general perspective, thanks.

Currently a 2nd year student, I relatively enjoy my course but my uni environment depresses me so much and I find I work & feel better at home. I've been living at uni for 1st and 2nd year and barely attended lectures due to my mental health slipping but still been getting fairly good grades. I've been thinking of commuting from home for 3rd year, it'd be just over 2 hours on the train but I wouldn't be going in every day as in third year most of the work is dissertation based. Even though I'd be away from uni I think I'd work better than I do now, especially because closer to home I'd have access to more resources relating to my dissertation anyway. I just don't know if it's worth it because some people say third year is more intense and I'd like to get a 1st, or at least a 2:1 so I don't know if it'd be better to be closer to uni facilities (even though I'd only be using the library as my degree is essay based). I'd really appreciate some general perspective, thanks.

Currently a 2nd year student, I relatively enjoy my course but my uni environment depresses me so much and I find I work & feel better at home. I've been living at uni for 1st and 2nd year and barely attended lectures due to my mental health slipping but still been getting fairly good grades. I've been thinking of commuting from home for 3rd year, it'd be just over 2 hours on the train but I wouldn't be going in every day as in third year most of the work is dissertation based. Even though I'd be away from uni I think I'd work better than I do now, especially because closer to home I'd have access to more resources relating to my dissertation anyway. I just don't know if it's worth it because some people say third year is more intense and I'd like to get a 1st, or at least a 2:1 so I don't know if it'd be better to be closer to uni facilities (even though I'd only be using the library as my degree is essay based). I'd really appreciate some general perspective, thanks.

Hi @strangledleaf,

It is great that you have spoken to your programme leader about it already. Do you know how many days you would be commuting for each week?

Do you intend to attend lectures in your third year? If so, can you see yourself commuting potentially 4-5 days a week?

I commute but I live about 15-20 minutes drive so it is not as far as 2 hours and still find the commute a bit annoying but I do use campus facilities a lot. It is good to see you are factoring in whether you would use the facilities or not as that is key to your decision I think.

Of course, no one can make this decision apart from you but I hope this helped a bit. Do you have friends/family you could ask advice from? or if you have already spoken to them what have they said?

Good luck!

Alia
University of Kent Student Rep

Hi, I'm currently in my third year and have found that my attendance has actually been the lowest compared to my previous two years of study just because I feel like some lessons are not relevant to my assignments. I think if you know where you work best you should follow that. Just try to attend where you can and make sure attendance isn't on your back!