Gracie and Anna, photo taken by Scarlett Jeffries
In this interview Scarlett Jeffries speaks to Gracie Lilyan, a third year interior design student at Falmouth University, and her housemates about their struggles and experiences with facing the rising costs of living independently at univeristy, house hunting and preperation for after they graduate.
What was the experience of independent living like for you? Moving away from home in first year was tough, I really struggled being in a new place with new people. Trying to find your place and where you fit in to all that.
In second year did it get easier? Second year It definetly got easier, especially after chriistmas. And then living with my friends made it a lot easier.
What was the process of finding a second year house, was it easy? No (laughs) we had so many viewings, we left it qute last minute. But it really demonising being rejected from so many places, that’s why we are still here, we don’t want to go through the process again even though this house is very expensive.
In an article by GSL Global, studies show that the number of students who said they faced a struggle with having enough money to get by was increased from 4% to 36%. financial pressures have forced many students to make sacrifices and even consider dropping out. In a survery of 1178 studnetsforcing students to make sacrifices and even consider dropping out of university. A survey by the Red Brick Research, they took 1,178 students from different instituitons and learnd that 72% of students have had to make sacrifices in response to the rising costs, with 1 in 10 stating they may be unable to continuetheir studies.
Gracie, Anna and Honey, photo taken by Scarlett Jeffries.
How do you juggle all the expenses of uni? We’ve all got jobs, we all work atleast one or twice a week so that definitely helps. First year i’d go home at Christmas or reading week and work to get money whereas now I do a shift a week which covers it a little bit. But when it comes up to deadlines it makes it harder, I definitely couldn’t do more than one shift. That would be too much.
Another study by Red Brick found that part time work was increasingly important, many students are struggling to find a job, 2 n 5 students are working while studying, whle the same amount where looking for work with the need for the money to get by.
How was it living with your friends after first year? We have random bits and bobs here and there that make it homey, make it less like a uni house, with what we have weve made it as homely as possible. But its still limited, we have one sofa between the six of us. One bathroom. We like out bedrooms, they are quite personal and decorative which we like. Moving in together definitely brought us closer, we sort of became one big group and just got closer.
DO you feel university has prepared you for the real world? No, no (nervous laugh) its going to be a bit of a shock
to the system, from living with friends to movng back home is gonna be hard, its that loss of independence, we cant just pop to spar to get chocolate late at night. A lot of us will go home and work and try and see where it goes from there.
Is there anything about univeristy you would change? I just wish rent was cheaper, we’ve had a lot of issues with this house and the landlords don’t really care, there’s quite a big culture of taking advantage of students, but at this point we’ve gotten used to it. Like we only had one toilet between the six of us, there was a dead rat in the kitchen a while ago. If rent wasn’t so high it wouldn’t bother us as much.
Gracie, Anna and Honey, Photo taken by Scarlett Jeffries