Commuter Students

Commuter students 

Who are commuter students?

Commuter students could be 1) anyone that doesn’t live on campus 2) anyone who lives at home during university or 3) anyone who lives outside of a student area in Norwich.

It is important to note that commuter students are such a diverse group of people and it impossible to generalise across it. You may have some commuter students that choose to live at home because of family, caring and employment responsibilities.

Here are some tips to reduce some of the challenges commuter students face: 

• Promote the benefits of being a member of your student group. If a commuter student has a lecture at 9am and your session is at 6pm, think about what is going to make them come onto campus again later in the day or potentially wait on campus until the session.
• Highlight some existing commuter students in your student group and share their experience of being a member. Raising the profile of commuter students will help engage more within your student group.
• When you run an event you could share information about travel e.g. is there parking at the venue or nearby.
• A mixture of times for social events, including some daytime events.
• A variety of event locations, such as having events in Norwich and events on campus. Sometimes students will have to travel to Norwich before they travel to UEA. If you can make some events in the city that cuts out that additional travel time.
• Think about how you can make your activities and social events as flexibility as possible. Can there be some flexibility with dropping into the session, arriving late or leaving early?
• Do a mixture of in-person and online events to help all students to be able to access them.
• Commuter students won't have moved into a flat on campus and potentially haven’t got to know many students when they are considering going to a taster session. Therefore, it is key to make all students feel welcome and develop activities that allow students coming on their own to make friends and develop support networks.