10 Things You Don't Know About Being a Student in Lancaster, But Should

Kayla Jenkinson 12 July 2018
10 Things You Don't Know About Being a Student in Lancaster, But Should

Because Lancaster isn’t just a town full of pensioners and pretty old buildings. We’ll run through a few things about both the campus and the town that students coming here should know...

1. You'll find The college rivalries REALLY ARE rivalries

The university’s collegiate system sounds all well and sweet until you’re stumbling home alone at 3am wearing your red ‘Bowland ‘Til I Die’ t-shirt, and a swarm of blue Lonsdale t-shirts come marching towards you. That is true fear, my friends.

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2. You'll Worship the ducks

They’re everywhere on campus. Whether you’re in Alex Square, outside the Spar or down by the Sports Centre, they will try and take your toes off if you sass them. And they will know if you try and sass them. Also, for the love of God, do NOT feed them.

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3. You’ll become an expert at weighing up the pros and cons of each meal deal

True, meal deals are the staple diet of every uni student at some point, but when you have a Greggs, WHSmiths, Costa and Spar all on campus, you’ll quickly establish which one is the best. Should just get a PhD in sarnies already, right?

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4. You'll have a favourite food place

While we’re on the topic of food, we need to talk about the inevitable addiction you’ll have to one of the food places on campus. The time will come when you have a crap week, have no food in besides half a loaf of bread and a questionable looking potato, and what will you do? You’ll walk into the loving arms of either Ketchup, Sultans or GoBurrito. And that’ll be it. It’s all you’ll eat for days to come, as your bank account sits in a corner and weeps.

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5. You'll realise They micro-monitor your attendance

In the good ol’ days of college, there was the myth that lectures weren’t compulsory. At Lancaster, that isn’t strictly true. You have to install an app called iLancaster, which on the one hand, is handy for checking timetables… But on the other, it also monitors your attendance. You have to check in to every lecture, and if you don’t, you’ll probably get a passive-aggressive email. Basically supervised as if you were in the Big Brother house.

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6. You'll have to deal with The buses

We all hate the buses. The routes change every so often, they’re always too warm, and if you want to try and catch the bus into town after the uni day is done, good luck. It can literally be like a horde of zombies down there as everyone scrambles to leave. FYI, at the time of writing, the 3 and 3A are the fastest buses. Don’t go near a 2A unless you’re desperate or fancying a half-hour snooze.

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7. And The nightlife

As far as nightlife goes, there’s not much variation. We’ve got the student union’s own Sugarhouse, and then besides that, there’s Dalton’s, Mint and Hustle. That’s basically it for mainstream clubs. While there are plenty of events put on at Sugar, it can get pretty boring pretty quickly if you go there regularly.

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8. You won't run out of things to do

In terms of daytime things to do, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Though a small town, Lancaster is filled with things to do. There are picturesque places like Williamson Park, great places to eat such as Pizza Margherita and Nami Sushi, and also a market in the town centre every Wednesday and Saturday that has lots of vegetable stalls and fresh desserts. (It’s also a great place to go if you’re going through dog withdrawal – there’s always loads being walked!).

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9. You'll have underestimated the cold weather

When anyone tells you that it’s cold in Lancaster, they seriously mean it’s cold. Even Northerners well accustomed to a chill or two will need to whack out their big coat, hat and several scarves because you’ll be sitting in lectures wondering why you aren’t doing an MA in becoming an ice-cube.

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10. You'll get sick of the building work

This last one is the most important. There is always, ALWAYS some building work going on around campus. Seriously, add an extra five or ten minutes onto your journey because chances are there’ll be a diversion somewhere. Say a prayer or three if there’s work on the Spine at any point too because hundreds of students trying to rush to lectures in opposite directions at the same time is just painful.

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Kayla Jenkinson 12 July 2018