Loading ...The University of London has made my degree worthwhile
London is a huge place, there’s no denying it, and given that there are 40-plus universities based here, it’s not a surprise that they mirror the capital’s dense urban sprawl.
The vast majority are spread throughout the city, located deep inside unusual buildings, each campus home to different faculties, teaching different topics, with different bars and different groups of people. It’s easy to fall into feeling utterly segmented, distanced from anything other than your own distinct little campus, but now I’m about to graduate I realise that being part of the University of London has offered a London-wide sense of community that would otherwise be sorely missed. Not only that, but Senate House Library near Russell Square, has saved my bacon more times than I care to count, and the intercollegiate module I studied at Goldsmith’s this year was exactly what I wanted, not being on offer in my own university.
ULU, for me, has provided partial remedy to the London-specific problem of the sheer number of higher education institutes rambling across the city. It’s not uncommon for a university to have three or four separate campuses, which provides good evidence of the capital’s endlessly-lauded diversity, and its haphazard expansion throughout history. But the knock-on side effect is that, for many students, there lacks a sense of cohesion.
There’s no student-based community spirit that you might feel in a university town like, say, Loughborough (I imagine). Two people on the same course can live an hour’s journey apart, meaning that for many, chilling at the bar can be a bit of a novelty and left for special occasions, resulting in what can be a very isolating university experience.
But for some reason I have found ULUto be a much more welcoming and central base, and better for meeting mates than having to travel out to my own university every time I fancied a sesh. If you don’t live on campus, which I never did, or indeed live quite a hike from it, ULU provides a nice middle-ground.
This is especially true when some courses, humanities in particular, only have maybe four classes a week, which can and do all fall on one day; sitting at home all day watching the Frasier marathon on E4 is a distinct risk.
Senate House Library, probably one of the finest assets on offer for students who attend universities within the federal university, became my second home this spring. For those who’ve used it, there’s no need to explain how ridiculously essential it is. I am not exaggerating when I say I could not have written most of my essays, including my dissertation, without taking advantage of the study space and books on offer there.
My aforementioned Goldsmith’s module was probably the most unusual choice available out of all the options, and was ideal for what I wanted to study. And it was only one choice out of about forty. I can’t imagine how limiting it would have been to choose from the three or four that were available at my own university.
London Student, where I’ve edited the comment section for the past two years, has been immensely enjoyable and put me in touch with so many people from other universities. Instead of being based exclusively at one uni, I’ve met people from King’s, LSE, SOAS and the like, which doesn’t tend to happen if you just hang around your own union the whole time. It’s like a whole London-wide student collective, instead of just a clique from one university. And being able to print articles where writers have felt free to express their genuine opinions, without feeling bound to one university, is probably the best part. Biased news, even in student journalism, is something to be avoided at all costs. It encourages the notion that partial reporting is a normal and acceptable facet of the media, which of course, it isn’t. London Student, by the virtue of being independent from any one university, can exercise this freedom.
Financially independent from one another, and scattered all over London, it would be easy to feel like your campus is just a small fish in a big pond. And the best part of ULU is the sense of shared community it encourages.
An interesting article. As a “London” student from an institution that isn’t part of ULU (we’re right on the edge of the city), I’ve felt nothing but isolated from the rest of the student world. Whenever I’ve visited friends at other universities up and down the country I’ve always noticed how vibrant, friendly and open their campuses and associated towns invariably are.
Thanks for your comment, I pretty much agree with you on this! My first university was in North London and was outside the ULU thing, and being in a London uni without a proper union was isolating as all hell and I had a totally miserable time.