FIRST-HAND · MOVING & SETTLING · 6 MIN READ

Campus Town or Big City? What Student Life and Post-Grad Life in the UK Actually Feel Like

I've lived both versions. A year on a university campus in Leamington Spa as a student, then almost four years in London afterward, working and commuting out to Gaydon a few times a week. They're not just different in scale — they're basically two different lives, and most "where should I study" content doesn't tell you what either one actually feels like day to day.

QUICK TAKE
  • Campus life in a small university town was genuinely one of the best years of my life — sport, drinks, study sessions, all within walking distance
  • The diversity on campus surprised me more than almost anything else — classmates from the US, Mexico, South America, China, Russia, across Europe
  • London is pacier, occasionally isolating, but there's always something new — four years in and I still haven't covered the whole city
  • Rent in London is roughly double what I paid in Leamington Spa
  • Which one's "better" genuinely depends on who you are — this isn't a one-size answer

Campus life: smaller world, bigger memories

Studying on a university campus made life a lot more fun and engaging than I think it would have been at a city-based college. Squash, badminton, football, drinks, or just study sessions for assignments — I hung out with the same friends constantly, because everything was five minutes away. Every day of that year is worth a memory now.

Much closer friends than I would have made otherwise — because you're not commuting home after class, you're still there.

Living in the university hostel wasn't cheap, but the extra cost was worth every penny. Being on campus meant events were easy to attend — no planning a journey, just walking over. And the diversity genuinely surprised me: classmates from the US, Mexico, South America, China, Russia, all across Europe. A small town, but a very unsmall mix of people in it.

Worth knowing if you have a family: campus accommodation is generally built around single students. Those with dependants had to arrange housing elsewhere in town — plan for this separately if it applies to you (and check the current dependants rules first, since they changed in 2024).

One thing that surprised me specifically: getting into town from campus was much easier than I expected, especially coming from the US where everything assumes a car. Buses ran on a regular interval, and a return trip cost barely £3.

London: pacier, occasionally isolating, endlessly explorable

Post-graduation life in London is a different rhythm entirely. It's faster, and there's a genuine undercurrent of isolation that nobody quite prepares you for — but there's also so much to explore that it balances out. We've been here almost four years and still haven't covered the whole city. Every area has different architecture, a different vibe. Name an adventure, a cuisine, an event — London has it somewhere.

Pub culture specifically was something I fell in love with, and genuinely didn't expect to.

The trade-offs are real, though. Rent here is almost double what we paid in Leamington Spa. My commute out to Gaydon for work is genuinely exhausting — that's the compromise that comes with living in London while working somewhere else entirely.

So which one should you actually pick?

Honestly — it depends. A big city gives you far more networking opportunity, more industries, more chance encounters that turn into something. But it costs more, and it asks more of you socially; you have to be genuinely outgoing to make it work the way a campus makes closeness happen automatically. If that's you, and you're willing to spend more for it, go for the city. If you want the kind of friendships that come from just being five minutes from everyone for a year, a campus town does that in a way London structurally can't.

This reflects one person's experience of a specific university and city — Leamington Spa and London specifically — and won't generalise perfectly to every campus or every city in the UK. Use it as one data point alongside your own research.

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