A Day in the life of a commuter student
Faheem Patel
ENGLISH BA(HONS)
Faheem is a second year English student who commutes to Huddersfield from Batley each day. He is also a keen baker with his own baking business, as well as working as a Social Media Rep for the University.
Life as a commuter student
Hi guys! My name is Faheem Patel, and I am a second-year student at the University of Huddersfield. In this blog, I'll be talking about what a day in the life looks like for a commuter student.
Morning routine
The beginning of the week is always the busiest part of the week because I’m on campus for several hours. To manage the long days of university (or the short), I need my daily morning routine, which is essential to my mental health and wellbeing. To kickstart the early 6am morning, the first thing I do is to drink my whole bottle of water to wake my senses up.
Followed by me making my bed, nipping to the bathroom, freshening myself up and performing ablution (purification) for my early morning prayers (fair), which is the prayer that takes place before sunrise and is said to bless the rest of your day with ease when performing it.
I then do my daily stretches, followed by a nice shower and I cannot stress this enough HAVE A SKIN CARE ROUTINE, CLEANSE YOUR FACE AND MOISTURISE IT.
After my shower I make myself a nice porridge (if it’s aesthetic I post it to my cooking page straight away, hint hint, go follow it), access my phone to message my friends, ask them how they are, and head to the train station.
Commuting to campus
Since I am living at home with my family, I tend to commute every morning. I’m from a little town called Batley, which isn’t very far from Huddersfield, so it’s an easy 20-minute journey.
On the way to university, I always bump into someone I know which makes the trip to uni extremely easy and it goes by very quickly resulting in me arriving at the train station half an hour before my lectures start.
As soon as I arrive in Huddersfield, I zoom to campus (typically by myself since I enjoy my peace in the morning, bombarding my ears with music through my AirPods), and contact my friends in my subject area, English.
We all typically meet on the fourth floor of the Oastler Building, which is pretty much the hotspot for the majority of students, since the SU (Students’ Union) is on the fifth floor.
We all head to the lecture, get our notes down and head to the next campus or seminar otherwise we typically have a break and go out to eat together.
Alternatively, I pop into the Richard Steinitz Building, sit on one of the many sofas, click on YouTube, find a video/podcast and just scran in the building.
I typically spend most of my time in and around campus, in buildings such as the Jo Cox More in Common Building, since it provides prayer facilities so I can pray on time thankfully; the Haslett Building, where a lot of my lectures take place, or the Joseph Priestly Building.
One of my favourite things about being an English student is that we aren’t restrained to one building, we are always in different buildings which keeps the environment refreshing and enjoyable.
It’s easily misconceived that if you live at home whilst studying you aren’t independent, and I highly disagree. Being an at-home (or commuter) student has allowed me to keep a balance between uni life, family life, and my time which, to me, is highly important."
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Heading back home
When the day comes to an end, typically at around 5pm, I sometimes hang out with friends who are also coming back with me, and take the 5.49pm train. Before taking the train I ring my mum or any of my siblings to notify them I'm coming home and to ask them how their day has been.
That’s one of my favourite parts about being an at-home student, keeping the connections with your family alive.
I’d like to say I'm a pretty family-orientated person with seven nephews and five siblings, it is exciting to come back home into the warmth of the home you grew up in.
It’s easily misconceived that if you live at home whilst studying you aren’t independent, and I highly disagree. Being an at-home (or commuter) student has allowed me to keep a balance between uni life, family life, and my time which to me, is highly important to keep all of these elements in my life.
When I arrive home, we typically eat together and I socialise with my family, pray, and wind down to a YouTube video, or play Minecraft with friends and call it a night at 10pm-ish.
I hope you’ve found this a useful insight into what it’s like being a student at Hud Uni.
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