Here are five things you’ll only understand if you’re a commuting Liverpool student

Travelling to uni is definitely a cheaper option, but what you save on rent, you miss out on experience. The concept of a Raz Monday sounds great until you realise you’ve got to get yourself home AND be up at 5am the next day to get onto campus. Don’t even get me started on commuting in for a singular seminar and travelling all the way back home. Ugh!

By the end of your commuting journey, you’ll know the train timetable off by heart and recognise the familiar faces who always seem to be on board, no matter the time. Whether you commute to the University of Liverpool, John Moores or Liverpool Hope, this list of relatable issues is bound to send a shiver down your spine.

Missing your train because your lecture overran by a few minutes

Maybe the most obvious downside to commuting is that going home is not always an easy task. An extra minute or two of a lecturer answering questions at the end of class can be crucial when you’ve got a train to catch. There is no feeling worse than rushing to make it to the platform only to see your train edging away from the station.

Having to walk up the hill to get to uni

As if delayed or cancelled trains weren’t enough to punish commuters, the journey only gets worse once you arrive at Lime Street or Liverpool Central. As an LJMU student, the walk to the Redmonds Building is tolerable, unfortunately I can’t say the same for those having to trek to the very top of Brownlow Hill. It’s an actual horror.

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I’m sorry to break this, but the walk will only get worse as we enter the winter months. When January comes, the walk becomes a battle against the harsher weather – wind in your face, slipping on ice, and you’re sweating underneath your six layers of scarves and jumpers. It’s brutal out there.

The FOMO from having to leave a night out early

Unless you’re lucky enough to have a friend’s couch to crash on, every commuter will understand the pain of having to clock watch on a night out to make sure you don’t miss the last train or bus. This also goes hand in hand with having to decline spontaneous post-lecture pints because you have already booked your journey home. Gutting.

Getting all the way to uni and realising you’ve forgotten something

Whether it be your uni ID or your laptop charger, forgetting something vital for your day is a huge inconvenience when you can’t just pop home to get it back. It’s even worse if you work in Liverpool and forget an integral part of your uniform after leaving for the day!

Having to wake up at the crack of dawn for a 9am

As if commuting isn’t enough, sometimes it feels like your timetable is really out to get you with the early starts. If you have any 9am starts, you’ll be no stranger to being awake about three hours before to make sure you catch the train on time. What makes this worse is the train times meaning you can either be 30 minutes early to your lecture or 20 minutes late, depending on which one you get. 

With all this being said, as annoying as commuting can be, it does have its benefits (still having your mum’s cooking to come home to being up there). The long gaps between lectures mean that you have more spare time to do some work in the daytime rather than leaving it until the night before. It also means that you have more time to explore Liverpool! Commuting is definitely not for the weak, but it will definitely make you a stronger person.