It's not catered. The people in my flat aren't bad at all - they just aren't really the sort of people i'd spend time with at all.

Will formulate a properly reply to this when i'm not quite drunk - but the timetable I was given is due to change (ffs!) so I will see what position that puts me in.

I know everyone disagrees when they go off to college, but the fact of the matter is that most of the friends you have now (from elementary and high school) you won't have, or won't be as close with, by the time you're done college; whether you live at home or not.

If they go to college, too, they'll have less time to keep the friendship, and/or change a lot to the point where it's not the same as it was. If they don't go to college, they'll be the same lame-ass bum they've always been. You're going to college; whether you want to or not, you will change. A lot.

Of course, there are some exceptions, but basically what I'm saying is don't cater your life to your current friends. You're still young, you won't talk to most of them 5 years from now. Don't jeapordize your own future for them. I don't talk to most of my old friends; half of them still don't have their high school diplomas and they're 22 FFS! I, along with everyone I'm in college with (same program or not) have changed immensely in the last 4 years. You will too, and you will come to value different things in relationships and friendships.

Besides, you don't live that far from home - Don't go home every weekend, but go home sometimes if you want. Get your friends (and girlfriend) to visit you, too. If they aren't willing to do that, then what kind of friends are they, anyways?

I'd say stay in the dorms (maybe find some cheaper ones, though. I thought my school was ripping us off...) for at least your first year. You'll make a lot of new friends, and have a metric shit-tonne of fun. My first year in residence was probably the best year of my life.

By the by; if none of this makes sense it's because I, like Jak, am a little sauced right now. MMmm... Hoegaarden....

I commute myself (50 mile round trip), and from personal experience: DON'T COMMUTE!

Sure you have your social life now, and its great (I love mine tbh), but its not worth risking the great times you can have at college. I thought that commuting would fit me better, then I stayed 3 nights with a friend in his dorm, and found out I actually made a mistake. Like everyone says, it really is the best (and most fun) experience of your life.

Living in the dorms (all four years of undergrad at my college) was easily one of the best times of my life. Do it.

OK enough, enough, you're all making me want to go back to Uni too.

TBH if I had the money I'd be sorely tempted.

Quote from BurnOut69 :

And get a Erasmus scholarship - or whatever they are called now - and go to Sweden or Denmark for a year ASAP.

What is it that more than half of the exchange students are Spanish over here? Fun people, but seems like a weird choice.

Interesting, from what I experience myself and hear from people about uni live, its not as superb as you people make it sound. All that fun they have is doing the same things they did in school, partying, drinking too much, doing stuff they regret later on

Even that one friend of mine whom I met this summer again for the first time since last summer (he studies in Bavaria, ~500km from here, 3rd year) says he regrets being that far away from his friends and that everything is not as much fun as told before. And he is a really extroverted everybody-likes-him guy. Is it that different in the UK?

You need to a be a binger to get along with ppl in the UK

Thats high praise coming from a Finn

I did not stay at college, I stayed at home. So, I don't know what staying at school would be like. I do know, after classes at my school, I would go to the other school's dorms and party.

As Maggot said, your lifelong friends are made in college. The number of very close friends from high school that I am in current contact with is 0. From college, I have a friend, whom I worked with at my current job for 12 years (he moved on to something else a couple of years ago,) and we are now also brother-in-laws. He's no longer a friend, he is and has been for 12 years, family.

Some more useless calculations:

Cost of Accomodation this year:

£3,630.90 (£95.55pw). That includes electricity, water etc, but not a TV license (dont want one) or food.

If I were to want to go home at the weekends (which I want to), a train ticket from here to home, and then back on the Monday morning would cost £11.15 with a student railcard - without one it would be £16.90.

Assuming I got the railcard, that brings the weekly total up to £106.70, aka £4054.60.

I then also need to include food in there, and a bus to take me from the University to the trainstation and vice versa, and also how i'd get from home to the station (parking at the station costs a LOT so a lift would be cheaper)>

My student loan for maintenance is for £3564 - so already it doesn't even pay for the room (short by £66.90) let alone anything else.

Alternatively, if I were to live at home:

Rent, food, water etc - £0 (but I would eventually convince my parents to let me pay *something*).

Getting to and from the University - £7 there and back.

The nearest place to park is at the local park and ride, which charges £255 for a student pass - however this doesn't take me to the University, however there is a Bus which takes me within a 15 minute walk of it, which is going to be around £1.80 there and back.

I'm not sure if I need to pay for the park and ride if I use the other bus, so I need to check.

Even so, that works out at a maximum of £255 + ((£8.80 x The Number Of Days I'm There Per Week) x 38)

Assuming im there 4 days a week, then thats £1592.60. Without the park and ride thats £1337.60

Thats well under half the cost, but more hastle.

Financially at least it makes a good case.







On a personal level - I really don't enjoy it here. Everyone says your flatmates are your best friends ever and while mine are fine as people, theres nothing I really have in common with them at all. Yes we exchange pleasentries but nothing more than that - they just aren't people that I can be close friends with at all - also, everyone else seems to want to go partying *all* the time and as boring as it sounds - I can't. Even if I did love my flatmates to bits - I would hardly ever be able to go out with them as I have early morning lectures that they just skip. Yes I can go for a drink with people from my course every now and again but thats still not something to do every night - it seems you all say the social aspect is more than worth the cost - but I'm not seeing it.

This decision is stressing me out immensely - otherwise I wouldn't post about it on a forum effectively saying "i'm a shy loner should i really pay £2.5k extra pa to sit in a room that makes it easier to get to Uni when all the time i'm missing people I can actually hold a conversation with".

I knwow whatever i'll do I'll regret it it's just.... ugh.

It sounds like you already know what you want, to be honest. Maybe you should find a cheaper room. That would make a good compromise between living at home and staying where you are.

I can't get a cheaper room on campus (I cant get a different room on campus full stop actually). If i went outside of the UEA then i'd start to lose some of the benefits of being here...

I already know what I want - and thats to be home again. But I know i'll regret if I dont explore every option first

You don't need to party everyday, and you don't need to be best friends with your flatmates. Be social around the whole campus; meet randoms at parties and events! You will find people at the school that you can hold conversations with. Everyone does, even the most lonliest of loner. You just gotta get outta that shell! (lots of beer may help, too)

Quote from tristancliffe :

My advice would be to stay in halls. Yes, you'll be a bit worse off, but you'll also benefit from that experience of being in halls. And you'll have somewhere 'private' to study away from home pressures and activities.

A lot of people I know who stayed at home whilst going to university ended up regretting it. Only a few, the most stubborn ones I guess, claim that saving money was the bigger success.

Fair point.
The best thing is to evaluate both world even thou you have just a week.
BTW,my university is 60km away from home and i rarely spent more than 230 euros in a month.Lucky,but my case is really different.

I wish my dorms were that cheap, I would not commute if they were...

Not counting any financial aids, the cost per year at my Uni was $10,000 (just to live there, not counting anything else).

Sorry Jakg,did you say 3,600 pounds just for the accomodation?
Maaaaan,that's quite a lot of money.

Quote from PMD9409 :

I wish my dorms were that cheap, I would not commute if they were...

Not counting any financial aids, the cost per year at my Uni was $10,000 (just to live there, not counting anything else).

Well,studying at Bocconi,here in Italy,is a good way to make your wallet lose weight.

Quote from PMD9409 :

I wish my dorms were that cheap, I would not commute if they were...

Not counting any financial aids, the cost per year at my Uni was $10,000 (just to live there, not counting anything else).

How was your accomodation that much? What size rooms were they?

My room is about 2.2 single beds wide and 2 single beds long with a slightly broken en-suite.

The course fees are probably cheaper (for me at least) i will admit.

That's pretty typical for a public university in the US.

Private universities... well, you might as well just buy a McMansion in this economy...

Quote from Jakg :

How was your accomodation that much? What size rooms were they?

My room is about 2.2 single beds wide and 2 single beds long with a slightly broken en-suite.

The course fees are probably cheaper (for me at least) i will admit.

12x15 (feet). It's the normal price around here sadly. I could probably get the smaller ones (not really smaller ones, just crappy) worth about 8k a year, but it was too far away from my classes (campus is like a city) so it wasn't worth it.

Jak, Ali is saying that staying at home will affect your student loan entitlement massively. Your calculations are faulty, being based on in-halls entitlement while weighing up at-home options.

If you don't take the halls option your entitlement will hang in the air rather like a brick doesn't. You need to talk to the Student Loans Co. tomorrow and find out what your entitlement would be if you were based from home.

I am calling the SLC tomorrow as I need to update them on the cost of the Foundation year - however I had already heard the amount available to me would reduce if I was to stay at home - this is the reason i'm holding off completing the forms so I will actually have the money they owe me paid to me until I know where i'm going.

Either way the amount of loans I get might change, but the amount in grants (£0) wont.

Even if the SLC dropped my maintenance loan by £2.5k i'd still be paying the same amount overall this year (but less in the long run).

It sounds to me like a classic case of home sickness. If so it'll pass when you find a good friend or two - and that's just a matter of self confidence.

Yep, it's way too soon to be judging it. It's not something that ever makes financial sense and doesn't many any sense to begin with. It's later you'll realise the way this seemingly small change will affect the rest of your life.

I never got on with any of my house mates, but because I wasn't living at home, I did make friends, elsewhere in the area, through people they knew, people on my course, people they knew, and so on, i.e. real social networking. That won't happen if you're living at home.