To live at university of not to live... at university!

[madmike]

Hello people, I used to be a regular to this site but haven't used it in a while now, so to quickly introduce myself again, i am a 21 year old male student from England. I'm coming into my third year at uni now and i've done pretty well for myself i think, but now i'm really stuck on the question of whether i should stay on campus this year or commute from home (about a 1.5 hour journey). I've been offered accommodation already but i have to decide within the next two days if i want it, and i really don't know. For one there's the price (my official excuse, although with the loan i should have no problem affording it) and then of course there's the stress of living at university as a social phobic, and since it's my third year, there will be a huge workload and i don't know if i will be able to cope with both!

I spent my first year at uni and it was an absolute nightmare, i'm sure my old flatmates won't forget about me anytime soon lol. I still don't know how i got through it, but i guess in retrospect i leant a lot of things from the experience i would have never had the chance to learn otherwise. My second year in contrast was really fantastic, it was a year abroad to a destination 4 air hours away from where i live; i was damn scared but i guess i'd learnt how to deal with it a little better after my first year. I just rolled with it and things turned out really well- but it was a constant effort for me and in terms of studying i got nothing really done!

So i guess i feel like living at university might help me more with my SA, but part of me just craves the comfort of home this year and getting my head down to studying...

(thanks for reading this slightly long thread btw )

 

[Ignace]

I think you should stay there, don't go home. It's just that feeling of the will to go home that can screw you over. Push through it. The thought that the 2nd year was alot better then the first one should be great motivation !

 

[madmike]

Yeah it is very encouraging, but i'm slightly worried about another disaster like my first year and wondering if it might not be better to just live at home and focus of getting my degree...

 

[Scrabbl]

I personally find it a lot easier to focus on studying when I'm close to the school. the reason being that I can bike to the library in 5 minutes and study there. but I guess if you commute u can use that time on the bus to get some reading done. Either way you should be good academic-wise.

If I were you I'd pick the school residence because it's a great way for me to meet people and challenge my SP. I already applied for a double room for next term. double room meaning that I'll be sharing the same bedroom with a stranger. I tell people that I'm sharing the room 'cause it's cheaper but in reality I went for it because I need to practice my ppl skills. I met my best friends from flatmates. It's a bit of a weird way to meet people i realize... but it beats having to make smalltalk with random people in lectures.

 

[madmike]

Thanks for the replies, i've decided i'm going to take the room afterall- although it will be a room entirely to myself haha, even if in England we had shared rooms i'm not sure i could do that!

Reasons for my decision; most of the good things in my life have come from the last two years which i spent at university and abroad. And you're right about the smalltalk thing, when you live with someone you somehow avoid all that and get to know a person for who they really are, i also made a really good friend while abroad and the only reason for that is spending more or less every waking hour with the guy!

 

[yumesa]

You could just stay at the uni for the weekday and go home on the weekends or the days you doesn't have school. I knew someone who did that and he lived 2 hours away.