Life in loughborough

I got accepted into uni of loughborough for a product design course and was wondering whether I should accept it. Any seniors who can help me with the kind of atmosphere and facilities that are there? Is it really quiet in loughborough or does it have a good night life? Literally any knowledge you could impart would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

Old Skool Freak

Hi, As you've probably heard before, Loughborough is very big on sports, with Wednesday afternoons practically dedicated to it; having said that, it's not the be-all and end all of it.

Which course are you doing Industrial Design or Product Design? Despite the similar titles, they are completely different courses, although both are very good from Loughborough, Product Design has the Engineering reputation of Loughborough behind it.

The town itself is small / medium sized, and the students make up a significant percentage of the town population. It's been a while since I was there, but in terms of nightlife, it had the reputation as being one of the best in the country. For starters, you've got the Students Union, which (in my day) had three big nights:-

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Stupid Tuesday:- A free event where the music policy is pretty random

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Hey Ewe on Wednesday:- A lively night to celebrate the sports side of "lufbra". Lots of party / singalong songs (and of course beer)

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The Friday Night Disco or FND:- The more serious club-night, music policy was chart, commercial dance and RnB

They used to have a back-room, that catered for more serious hip-hop/ RnB, so would also include grime, afrobeats / bashment etc... but I know that's now gone and it's a pizza place or something. The top bar would be more indie / rock / classics. Besides that, the hall committees are very active in organising social events to get every one mixing with each other. Could be a quiz night, Karaoke, a day out somewhere or whatever .

The town itself, is about a 10 minute walk from the Uni campus, and in between is "The Student Village". The vast majority of the students who move out of halls end up living around this part of the town. The town centre itself had a Revolution bar, Wetherspoons and many bars typical of a much bigger town. There is one major nightclub in town called Echoes which is/ was very popular on Saturday nights. Still, even if nothing in Loughborough floats your boat, then you can head off to one of the nearby cities; either Leicester, Nottingham or Derby. All these cities have good train services (or you can take the bus, if you're feeling poor lol). You can spend a Saturday afternoon going shopping or go for a night out in one of those cities, and split a cab back between 4 of you at the cost of no more than a couple of drinks each.

As I said, the students make up a significant part of the town population, and you DO notice their absence in vacation (Christmas, summer... Easter, less-so). It's generally quite safe for students... having said that, obviously be sensible when going out at night. There are only really two parts of Loughborough that had a reputation for being "dodgy", these were Shelthorpe and The Old Ashby Estate... although the latter is still quite popular with students, given it's proximity to the university. They won't compare to any inner city area of London, Manchester etc. but it's just for Loughborough's standards.

How good a time you'll have there will ultimately depend on your personality type and who you meet there. As per above, the social life is very lively, so it's likely to favour those who like a bit of a party. Regardless of your personality type, if you meet the right people for you, it'll be the best years of your life... meet the wrong people and it can be your worst nightmare.