How to survive going to university in London

To all ye young students just starting out at a London uni: you should have gone to Manchester. Okay, not really.

But while friends will be drinking their way across the local student strip, wearing fancy dress and having the time of their lives, it’s likely you will spend these first few weeks searching in vain for budget bars, not getting very drunk because it’s too expensive and you’re scared of the night bus home, and trying to find anyone who cares what you got in your A-levels during rush hour on the Central Line.

Between the two of us, we went to four London unis - here’s our guide to get you through it.

Going out

Accept this truth: if you’re at a London uni, nights out will require a lot more effort. Everyone you know who didn’t pick London (or couldn’t get in) will appear to be having a better time than you over the next three years – and they will talk about it for five more years after that.


Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield – these are fun university cities. Every night is your night in the north. Cheap taxis will wait for you to fall into them outside Vodka Revs, and probably let you smoke out the window. Tens of cheesy chip stands will help you gain those crucial freshers five (or 15) pounds. You’ll go home with the love of your first year and pass out, elated.

Meanwhile in London, you enter Ministry of Sound on a Friday night after panicking about the number of exits at the Elephant and Castle underground, spend £16 on two drinks in shallow tumblers at the bar, and search for familiar faces – keeping a firm grip on your belongings because you’ve read the crime rates.

The good news is: great things can be achieved when your social life isn’t as fulfilling as you expected. There’s something to be said for the void. Look at Nietzsche, Proust, Emily Dickinson – being a loner can stimulate the brain and you might even get more work done because of it.

Success

Living in London offers plenty of opportunity for good work experience while you’re at uni, rather than wasting time and money on it when you graduate. Lots of people who choose London aren’t just interested in a uni experience. They’re getting contacts in music, media, finance – whatever their ambition is – or using the city to get noticed as a trendsetter.

However, this does mean that the competition starts early. While most 18-year-olds go to uni precisely to delay this sort of stress, in London, for better or for worse, you’re already in the race.

The commute

One major downside is that while campus students can enjoy a leisurely walk or cycle to lectures, most London students join the hordes in their commute across the city on packed tubes. Apart from not wearing a suit or getting paid, you’re just like any other miserable office worker.

Housing

If you’ve a place in halls for first year, building up a sense of community there is crucial, because housing will be challenging in years two and three. In less crowded cities, students can live in the same square mile but, in London, your friendship group can quickly disperse depending on where everyone can afford to rent. It’s also common for London first-years not to live in halls at all, but with parents or more distant relatives in family homes in Greater London and the home counties. So if you are in halls, make the most of it, and think about extending your time there if you’re given the choice. Otherwise you’ll be looking for a room wherever you can afford one and you’ll be lucky if there are other students living nearby.

Egalitarianism

Luckily, in London, snobbery isn’t really an issue. In places like Cambridge, Newcastle and Nottingham, if you wear Hunter wellies and have an Aga at home, there are halls designed with you in mind. Posh digs have nicknames like “Hu Stu” and “Cripps” where girls who wear pashminas and boys in red trousers can kick back and have some quality bantz on the quad, singing snobby chants about the rest of us.

In London, you’ll be spared this kind of low-brow elitism as there are no such things as posh halls. Most student accommodation is in the grittier parts of town and no one cares what school you went to or where your second home is.

Romance

It’s definitely harder to pull in London; just ask anyone who lives here. Expensive drinks followed by night-bus terrors or exorbitant taxis mean “come back to mine” is a far greater investment than many are willing to make. If you hang around London bars, you’ll soon be hit on by old men in suits who really should know better. Campus uni student nights are a safer bet, where you’re more likely to find the kind of fun you should be having at 18.

Hierarchy

The London university league used to be very elitist and if you weren’t at Imperial, LSE or UCL, you may as well not have bothered. But, thankfully, this has changed and there are highly rated courses to be found across the capital. London is a sophisticated choice for art and media subjects especially, and employers are wise to this.

Streets ahead

For those graduating from campus unis in other cities, a move to London in search of work will be something of a culture shock. London students have three years to acclimatise, and when it comes to first job interviews and internships, having some crucial contacts and knowing where you’re going will put you at an advantage.

So, to summarise: studying in London may not offer the time of your life, but at least you won’t have to go through the process of mentally getting over the glory days. Neither will you make the mistake of moving to Clapham when it’s all over.

(Source: TheGuardian)