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If you can’t beat Leam, join Leam

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During your time at university, you will be faced with many choices: stay in or go out? 9am lecture or bed? Smirnoff or Tesco Value? However, a much greater dilemma comes to the forefront of our lives when Warwick students enter the very adult world of house hunting. The dilemma I speak of is, of course: to Leam or not to Leam?

Follow the herd

Most students choose to live in Leam – or rather Royal Leamington Spa (even the name sounds classy and regal), and although I shouldn’t advocate following the crowd, when it comes to housing the one piece of advice I have is: follow the crowd.

The vast majority of your friends will be in Leam, and it is nice to live in a town where your friends are close by. You’ll always have someone to catch the bus with, and if you are caught in the crossfire of house drama, in which one housemate is attempting to strangle another because the last of their milk has been stolen, then you have the option of retreating and finding sanctuary in a friend’s house just a few minutes away.

It’s not all doom outside of Leam

That is not to say that everyone who lives outside of Leam is a social pariah; you can still meet up with your friends, but it does become much more inconvenient and time-consuming. In first year, you live in the Warwick bubble where the greatest trek of your life is the fifteen minute brisk walk to the Westwood post-room, but when you live in Canley or Kenilworth, a half-hour bus journey one way really puts your first year problems into perspective.

Moreover, Leam is a nice-looking town and the parade has plenty of restaurants and shops to keep any procrastinating student occupied. The nightlife is also thriving, with a range of affordable pubs like the Jug and Jester, and clubs like Neon and Smack – let us not forget that the Uni Express has a pick up point in Leam so giving up your weekly dose of Kasbah is not a necessary sacrifice.

Pros and cons

Of course Leam isn’t perfect; the U1 bus journey can make 9am lectures seem like an impossible dream (especially with that rush hour traffic), and when you step off the bus you can feel as though you’ve aged about 20 years, but on the whole, getting up a tad earlier is a small price to pay for living in a picturesque town with a high student population. A massive part of the university experience is getting to meet wonderful people and making friends for life, and it’s quite pleasant to have those who are close to your heart living close to your home.

Still unsure where to go next year?  Ask us your questions in the comments below!

Photo: barnyz / Flickr

Gerard JonesIf you can’t beat Leam, join Leam

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