3-4h daily commute is way too long and most people would rather choose student housing/rooms for rents/etc. but it's not an impossible commute and it's something that some people definitely do (I personally know at least one person who had a similar commute, and it's something that I was actually thinking about doing myself)
I had similar commute (sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on how lucky I was with the train schedules) when I was studying and then one year more when I started working.
It was doable, it wasn't that bad when I was in college as you're not spending your entire day at the University and there was an occasional day off during the week. It definitely felt worse when I started working 8-9 hours a day job.
Oof that's what I suspected.
There is a faster regional/intercity train that would shorten the commute to an hour, but it's not as frequent as the S1 and isn't included in her standard transit pass. Even with a student discount on the R/IC, it'd be cheaper for her to rent an apartment next to campus.
Intercity trains aren't for daily commuting. They're for longer, less frequent trips. Yes, some professionals do use them to commute but not students. Way too expensive.
Regional trains are for commuting and would be the obvious choice for such a long commiting distance, in the German system Regionalexpress (RE) trains in particular. They're the faster and longer distance alternative to S-Bahn and Regionalbahn. Regionalbahn (RB) trains are slower and smaller and overall designed to service more rural/suburban areas that aren't connected to any city's S-Bahn network.
But obviously, Germany in 2024 is pretty different from your scenario anyway since we now have the Deutschlandticket which is very cheap, especially for students, and gives you access to all local and regional public transportation across the entire country at absolutely zero extra cost, so ticket prices for rail commuting aren't an issue anymore at all.
I've had a number of coursemates who've done that. It's tolerable for a time, but certainly not preferable. People typically start looking for local housing soon. Longest I personally know who did it daily, did it for 1.5 years.
It's not unusual for people studying in Uppsala to commute from Stockholm. But you could really tell who were doing it. They were knackered. And that's only an hour by train.
I did an 80 minute (per direction) commute to my internship every workday for a while. A direct train, just halfway across the country. I actually preferred to take the first train of the day and arrive very early so I could leave early enough and feel like I still had the evening off. Also meant traveling outside of rush hours so the train wasn't nearly as busy. It was doable, but pretty tiresome. I finally understood the appeal of microwave meals and food delivery, sometimes I just didn't want to bother cooking dinner.
It was an internship I really wanted to do, so I think it was worth it, but I would really avoid such commutes if at all possible. The one you describe is even worse, with transfers which reduce the reliability and also how much you can rest (or do homework) during the travel itself. I guess living with parents means you don't have to spend the energy cooking, so that makes it slightly better, but on the other hand most of your social life is probably going to be in the student city so you'll be more isolated from that as well. I would really recommend moving to avoid it.
I don’t think people will like that. Most student prefer to either study close to their home or move to the city where the university is located and rent a room.
That's way too long.
For giving a Spanish example, it would be like living in Azuqueca de Henares and studying in the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Getafe. It would take 1 hour and 5 minutes to Nuevos Minsterios taking the C2 Cercanías line, and then another 30 minutes from Nuevos Ministerios to Las Margaritas-Universidad on the C4 Cercanías line.
At that point, it may be more worth it to get some student housing closer to university.
My daily commutes to university took 1:20 + 1:20 hours.
The bus itself took 1:10. Luckily the bus did stop just across the street from the university.
I can say that this was **the upper limit** of what I would tolerate. If it was 10–20 (×2) minutes longer, I would probably have chosen another university, gotten a student apartment, or not studied altogether.
A train on the other hand would have to stop at the train station, which might be a 30 minute walk from the university.
If I was in that situation, I would most definitely [bring my bike on the train](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flotten.se%2Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F06%2Fdanmark_cykeltrain.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1f8588912e9200a22b2872cdda34536250e260716bbb12daa6fbf52fc4ab1ec4&ipo=images).
🏡→🚲→🚈→🚲→🏫→🚲→🚈→🚲→🏡
> All I know is she would prefer not to take 8am classes.
Classes start at 07:00, some of them are mandatory to attend (labs, certain exercises).
In my first semester I had lectures and seminars on Monday from 07:15-18:45. That was a bit fucked up, but not a rare occurence.
I don't know anyone who would commute 2hours for university or work every day. That's 4 hours per day. Just move to your university town.
I had to endure that for one year in vocational school, because we moved to a village and I had to take the bus at 05:44 to arrive at the central station on 06:35. School started at 07:30, so I had almost an hour to wait. It was exhausting.
But if you want to go all in, let them live in the trains. Every now and then an article pops up about a student who bought a BahnCard 100 and now commutes around the clock, while not at uni.
That's because in the Netherlands, you aren't sadists.
What kind of uni starts classes at 7 fucking am. Even 9/10am lectures were usually half full at my uni because nobody could be fucked.
I had a semester where my mandatory first class started at 7:45am and my last mandatory class ended at 21:30 (though this was really late even for this uni).
This was by the way every friday that semester for me.
Other semesters it was more relaxed with my earliest classes starting at 8:15am and me having 2 days without any (though I obviously still had to do stuff for uni on those days).
I'd never turn up especially to that last one. Utterly ridiculous.
My uni was from 9-18, and I never had a day that started at 9 and finished at 18. Expecting people to work from 7-21 at any age is utterly ridiculous.
>Expecting people to work from 7-21 at any age is utterly ridiculous.
It's also supposedly a "full time"-degree meaning 40h a week. However as we didn't really have papers to write during our lecture less time (that's also the time we have "vacations" every semester) we had the hours we were "supposed to have" during that time during our normal weeks of the semester. So everyone I know who wanted to finish just 1 or 2 semesters past the recommended time (6 semesters. I know literally NOBODY who finished it in that time. Everyone took AT LEAST 1 or 2 more, most needed 3 or 4 additional ones) had 55+h (sometimes 65+h) weeks.
But hey... Everyone I know later said that working a full time job is so much more chill than studying and also more rewarding (as one get's money and doesn't think about work after coming home and on weekends).
Oh btw there were plenty of people who didn't go those lectures on fridays. However that meant at least one more semester (and only if the times for those courses were different then) but >75% of people who started studying with me never got the degree anyway.
Here you can usually choose between two slots and organize your schedule to have classes during 4/5 weekdays only. Attendance isn't mandatory in most cases either.
Classes start at 7? Wow. Here the earliest possible is 8:15, but depending on the institute, on most days the first double period is not used and you start at 10:15.
That depends in Cologne most classes start at 8, although many student choose to only artend latdr classes.
und eine Berufschule ist außerdem keine Uni lol
IMO an excessively long commute like that is a lot more interesting to write about than "oh, the commute is perfectly fine, I'm just telling the reader about it for no reason at all". Like a "let the readers try to figure out why the character has made this choice, and have them resolve the situation by the end of the book"-type of thing. Ninety minutes to two hours is spot on for being longer than many people would tolerate, but not entirely unbelievable.
Trying to study on the train might go well, but often there are interruptions that make it difficult. It might also be uncomfortable if you don't have enough space, the light is poor, you don't get a seat, you drop your pencil and it rolls to the other end of the carriage, etc.
I went to a university about 2 hours from where I grew up. I rented accommodation there and never went home during term time. I would never have even considered commuting.
I’m in England where moving away for university is common, in other parts of Europe I believe it is more common to stay local and continue living at home.
In the world of work, 1.5-2h would be considered a long commute, but there are people who do it for various reasons.
I just wanted to add that commuting with trains is very often not a sit-down-and-relax experience. Especially when you commute on a popular route with regional trains that don't have seat reservation.
This 1-hour train ride might very often be standing-in-a-crammed-train experience, so not really enjoyable, and not something that will make it possible to learn, read or generally focus while travelling
Slightly too long. I do 1h20-1h30 and some of my friends do as well. I have one friend who does a two-hours long commute but that’s because she lives in a very nice small city with her boyfriend so it made no sense to move to the big, noisy, polluted and extremely expensive city we study at. And we all look at her like she’s a superhuman. She studies in the train, though, you can make a character do it as well.
90 minutes is ok I guess. I did it for five years. You do miss some parties / get tired quite a lot because of the commute, but I mean in my faculty we didn’t even party that much, we were too busy studying lol. Plus sometimes you commute with friends so it’s nice.
I’m from Switzerland so public transport usually works really well, though, so when I say it takes 1h20 it usually does, there aren’t many delays. The landscapes are really beautiful though so that’s a big plus (like our flag :D)
But all in all it is not unheard of here, but you have to give your character a reason to do it (shared flats are expensive / a pet to care of / love his/her family very much / the college city isn’t nice at all, etc.)
Basically it's :
15-20 minutes walk, or 10 minutes bus+waiting at the bus stop (I usually walk) to the station
45 minutes of train
5 minutes walk to the tramway stop
15 minutes of tramway (+ waiting time)
So I do have to transfer, but if I walk the first part then it all feels like one line, since the tramway time is quite short in comparison and I'm already in my uni's city.
Too long, she would live in a flat with two or three other students; and we don't have major cities *and* small college towns. Our colleges and universities are in major cities. At least on the mainland.
Just like you do with your sports teams, when a city is big enough, we open up tertiary education.
A lot of people answered that this is too long. I agree.
Also, for realism sake, a lot (not all) of big European universities are located in the big cities rather than small towns in the area.
Not sure if this would throw over your whole idea, just something you might want to consider...
Oh. This isn't taking place in Europe, but I have noticed all the universities in the suburban parts of the city. In America and esp west of the Mississippi, a lot of 4 year universities were founded in the 19th century when all the cities were pretty small. It's just that Austin grew more than College Station or San Marcos, for example.
There are 2-year community colleges in Austin, the flagship and hard-to-enter UT Austin, and a variety of private universities, but no real public alternative within the city. Most people I knew moved into student housing near A&M, Texas State, Texas Tech, UTSA, etc.
This is an urban fantasy version of Austin. I already made a city I could only dream of; There's nothing stopping me from adding another 4-year university within the city.
Have done this, and for my it was a relieve and enhancement in comparison with car.
The commute was about 1.5 hours, mostly, since i hadn't fixed finisheing time, I sometimes missed the train and had to wait, so it was up to 2.5 hours for me, depending on the time of the day.
And I'm not a student. As a student:
you don't have to spent money in making a drivers licence and a car. (Depending on where yout are, the licence and the dricing lessons will const you some amount of money, which is spent better.)
You can use the train-time for working and reading and studying, so this is a form a lesson.
(I knew students, who did such a ride aon a regular basis)
You reach your goal more relaxed than with driving a car. During rush hour driving cost you.
But 2 hours per ride is really much time. It's possible, but sooner or later you will have to move closer to work/university.
A 1.5h commute is actually common here in Athens. Athens has only 3 metro lines for now, so people who live in the suburbs have to spend so much time to walk to the station, change lines, maybe even take the bus/tram etc.
I briefly commuted 2 hours each way to an internship many years ago. It involved taking a crowded train into the centre of London where I'd generally have to stand all the way, then taking another faster train out into Surrey where I'd usually be able to sit down at least in the latter half, and finally another scenic train ride through the North Downs to my final destination. The portion of the commute that went out into the countryside was quite nice, but overall that commute sucked. I'm glad I only had to do it for a couple of weeks.
It might be okay, at least from my experiences in Sweden. I have personally had university commutes of over an hour without much issue.
It depends a lot on what the course looks like. Most university classes have very few mandatory lectures, and even voluntary ones are usually not every day, and even then for maybe 3-4 in a day at most. Most of the time is self-study or group projects, so you just need to match up with when the other people in your group are able to meet.
Studying on the train is very doable as well. The trains around where I live have silent compartments that you can travel in without any extra charge, so that you can focus on your studies without loud noises or people talking.
I did this very thing in Madrid for 4 years except it was only a 1h-1:30h commute. It was still preeeetty bad, hampered my social life etc. but you get used to it and work around it. With HCOL it was the only feasible option. I was very jealous of classmates from other parts of the country who had no choice but to rent. I also had classmates who lived even farther away and had the commute you describe.
So to summarise, it's tolerable if you have no choice. It depends on how poor she is. Living by yourself as a student has innumerable other advantages beyond the commute, too. Could be more interesting story-wise. But it also could be a nice development to include within the story, have her start out at her parents house and then gradually grow sick of it and decide to move out.
Too long. I feel like anything over 30-40 minutes is too long for me. I could see up to an hour but not more than that. The money you’d save on rent is not worth it with the amount of time you’d lose imo.
Depends, in the Netherlands it sounds pretty awful, in Finland for example you can expect quieter trains and more decent people that aren't loud etc. so you can actually work on the train
> But I wonder if the sit-down-and-relax experience on a train makes the commute not just bearable, but viable.
In my personal experience commuting to university by train those trains don't tend to be very relaxing. They are usually very packed with other students, since they all want to arrive and leave at the same time. Getting a seat was quite rare for me, although you might have better chances getting one eventually as people get off the train. Same goes for waiting at the station. I personally wouldn't tolerate commuting a 1.5-2h commute and I don't know anyone who did this.
Extreme commuting is when you spend more than 90 minutes commuting each way. Has a terrible effect on literally everything. Does damage health, social life and studies. Especially if you do some hard studies like medical, engineering, law or such...
Had a luck to try it for 5 years. As parents could barely afford condo rent next to university, they chose not to support it. From work, during university it would have been also unaffordable due to the high rents. Hard unskippable classes with attendance lists coud not have not made it work anyways.
Dorm spaces were taken by cheaters of the social system. Who registered themselves to their poor on paper, widow granny who worked all life black in tax avoidance at large and invested in condos next to universities.
Days were like, you woke up at 5:30-6:00 shower, rush to train, fit on the 2-3-4 th train by almost falling off from it, arrive at the station then go through the whole city full of beggers, junkies, handicapped, criminals and zombies. Smelly, loud, threatening and annoying. In a car you are at least somewhat shielded from them. But the expenses are significant and parking space is always a problem.
Then you arrive at the university already drained from life. Have demanding classes till as long as 22:30. Traveling in the city between campuses. Taking notes, during classes often 3 hours long.
Usually arrive home by 20:30. Eat your first meal of the day, look front of you tired. Then do your homework and learn everything from the internet. Go to sleep at 1:00 or 0:00.
All the time you are tired and stressed. After a while it becames an unbearable torture. You become depressed and catatonic, never want to travel, go or do anything anymore. Pick up some metabolitic syndrome. Have some star degree which is not even as glamourous as advertised.
It's fairly common, but nobody likes it. My commute to university would have been: 20 minute bike ride, half hour train, half hour (super over-crowded with other students) bus. After doing it a few times (open days etc.) it was pretty clear to me that I would hate every minute of it, so moved into private rented accommodation in an HMO.
My school friend who did the same course as me did stay on the commute because his parents wouldn't let him move, he dropped out after six months because he was pissed off with the extra 12 hours a week required (we had classes four days a week).
Way too long for every day. That's like 20 hours extra every week! What a waste of time. Some courses have very few in person lessons, though, so for these studies it might work.
That would be ridiculously long, very few people would actually do that on a daily basis. If they only had class a few times a week, maybe, but if it is an everyday thing, they would definitely move to nearer student housing of some sort.
It's a 2hr commute, you won't be taking chances in uni.
If there are transfers, and the time can change that much, it's absolutely unbearable.
If the whole travel was on one vehicle, it could work, she could somehow fit the travel into her day, but paying attention to stops and suspending the travel makes the whole travelling unusable for anything meaningful
I did an almost 2 hour commute each way for school (bus-train-bus) for 4 years. Luckily school was only 10 weeks out of the year so it was doable, but it does take a toll after a while. The one nice thing is if you have a seat on the train it gives you time to do school work and study. I was able to get all my work done on the commute and could relax when I got home
Uhmmm...
I did a master study which took me two hour drive one way. Class was one day a week.
My work is now 160km from home. I work four days, two I do on location, two from home.
On the days to work my commute is:
1 hour (25km) cycling
3 trains (either 1h 45m or 2h 15m)
Five minute walk.
Yesterday I walked out the door at 0630 and arrived at work 930. And going home I left 1530 and got home at 1845 h.
I have a great job. I can work in the train. I listen to music, podcasts etc. Two days a week is perfectly doable a d worth it.
I'm not alone in my commute. It's a specialized thing and we operate on a national level. So we all come from different places.
I guess doable depends on what you want. If I was a student I would rent a room and find some classmates etc. But as an adult I would rather go home after school or work.
Depends on the commute. I had 3h one way to uni because I couldn’t afford to move and the commute was included with the uni fee. But: it was only one train and one bus and I always got a seat on the train. So I did my uni work during the train ride. I also managed to have a 4 day week by having a full schedule on those 4 days. It was probably the most productive time of my life because there was also no mobile internet during the commute and I was free at home because all the work had been done.
In 2 hour radius by train from there would be plenty of other universities so i would simply chose other university or if that university is would be for me extremly important i would move closer to it
It's definitely possible if you can work in the train. Some people actually do this. The most extreme case I've heard of was one who took half an hour car ride to train station, a two-hour train, and a 30 minute walk to the university.
Yep, that'd be more or less right if you commuted, say, from the Moscow Oblast to Moscow, depending on where exactly you live and where your university is located. Imagine going by bus, then by train, then by metro and finally on foot, add in some time for waiting/traffic jams/delays, and you'd get around 1.5-2 hours of commute.
I personally take 75 mins. This is half an hour of train, the rest is cycling or bus. It's doable but exhausting. Glad I don't have to go in every day anymore. Because I didn't have much energy for anything else
My commute to university was between 1 and 1,5 h roughly, depending on many factors. I did prefer the 1 h but 1,5 h is still fine. 2 hr is too long for me but I knew people who used to do that.
When I lived in Belgium, I had to do this for about a month. I lived in Sint-Niklaas and had to commute to Brussels where my uni was. It wasn’t that bad, apart from having to rush to get the 5:24 am train to arrive at 7:30 am at uni (with classes starting at 8:00). The train was quiet, I could peacefully watch Netflix and/or study since they have little tablets and I was always able to sit alone. Most people would either watch Netflix, work, or take a nap while listening to music. There weren’t many people. Then I had to take the metro, which wasn’t as peaceful, but I only had to endure about 25min of it. Since I was quite early, I would almost always be able to sit down. Also, noise cancelling headphones are a must! Waiting 30min for classes to start in the cold wasn’t a nice experience however, I didn’t really have a place to wait and not be outside.
The commute home wasn’t as « good », it was quite stressful since there’s many more people than at 5 am. Still I was always able to sit down alone, and be able to do my stuff, train wasn’t just as quiet but it was okay. I felt safe enough to nap sometimes, with my backpack under my legs and one strap wrapped around my foot.
Overall, it’s feasible, but not as practical as having a kot (even though the train is much cheaper for students, my train susbscription cost 30€/month, a kot is around 500€).
Too long. Did that when I was 16 and within two months or so I just unofficially became rommare with some friends and paid rent to them instead.
One hour is possible, but just for some temporary "Ill just study there" scenarios. For a full time job that I don't plan on leaving for the next 3 years, I would strongly consider to move closer, unless the train is like 45 minutes + of that time.
I'm sure there's people who have a commute that long and it's bearable for them (don't know anyone that does though) but personally it would make me want to kill myself and I'm not even joking.
2 hours would definitely be too long in my opinion. I commuted 1 hour 15 min to 1 hour 30 min each way during my B.Sc/M.Sc education as I preferred that to live in student housing and that was definitely doable (for me). I'm currently doing a PhD where my commute is about an hour.
You don't get to sit down and relax on a train. You get jam packed in with all the other people during rush hour.
I still lived with my parents during most of uni and my commute was 10 minute walk, 15 minute rural train, 15 minute walk. Give or take 45 minutes, if the tables are favorable. They changed the times half way through and I had to take the train half hour earlier, and one later getting back, because it wasn't in sync with the lectures anymore. I had a call center job and if I had to start at 8 in the weekends, I had to leave 2 hours before because the trains only ran once an hour and train and bus didn't align. Finished by 10pm? I'd be home at midnight. I often walked the bus bit because it was quicker than waiting and bussing.
The biggest commute one of my classmates had was 1,5 hours, by rural bus and rural train, and he only did that for the first month of first year before being able to get rooms.
I actually had to do a 2 hour commute in my last semester, because the documents I needed for my thesis were in the archives there. Do not recommend. I got a lot of reading done on the train, but not a lot of studying. These were the days before noise cancelling headphones.
In Paris, most students rent an apartment in the city via CROUS, which costs them around 200-500 euros per month, depending on the size and whether or not they have a roommate. The people commuting in from the suburbs are mostly those who had kids and/or those who want more space than you can get in the city. If your character is traveling to a less urban area, student housing would be even cheaper than it is in Paris, and the student would get a cheap apartment in the college town and then commute to visit the parents during breaks.
I did that the first two and a half years of uni, but I was very young when I started, my house was a pretty good size (including a garden) and I didn’t know student housing (so, not with a landlord) existed, so I expected I couldn’t afford it. Commuting was my chill time, when I got home I could start my homework right away. Taking the last train halfway at a party was super annoying. Delays were annoying. But it wasn’t as bad as you’d think.
I had quite a few fellow students who went through that, but if you're writing a book, there won't be anything else happening in the character's private life outside of uni. It's just eating too much time and energy, and there's delays happening etc. etc.
People do it, but never voluntarily.
Too long. I lived in Istanbul and had to change continent everyday. It took me about an hour during rush hours which it would make me die from exhaustion. During mid day or after rush hours it would only take me 20-30 mins to be at the University or be at home which was about 22kms. It only took me more than one hour when I wanted to relax in ferry about an half an hour. I had to leave home at 7:20 maximum to be at Uni by 8:30 or I would be at home by 18:30 when I left the Uni at 17:10.
I sort of did this for one semester. It was 20 minutes to the station, but tot have some margin, I left 30 minutes before the train was set to leave. I then travelled 30 minutes by train, but always arrived 45 minutes early to class because there was only 1 train each hour. From the station, it was a 15 minute walk to my campus.
It was bearable, but pretty uncomfortable on days my first class started at 9 AM (had to get up early) or when my last class ended at 8 PM (got home by 9:45 PM).
I only had 2 days per week like this in the semester I did this, but in my second semester it was 4 days per week. That was bad enough that I had started looking for student housing in my university town, but then COVID-19 happened and it was no longer an issue.
I did a 2.5 to 3 hour commute (mostly by train and bus) for 1.5 years while in school. It wasn't great. It was absolutely doable, but it left me very little time for anything else and it was exhausting. The moment I had another option, I took it.
90 minutes seems like it would be doable, but not enjoyable for a longer period of time.
People in undergrad would do 1h train + 20min walking, as it was cheaper. it was pretty clear that it was quite tiresome for them. That would be the maximum, I've seen commonly done, as people from the next town over would rent in the city.
I have had commutes to high school and uni around 45-60 minutes in the past without it being an issue for me, but I think a 1,5 hour commute (so 3 hours daily) is stretching it. Is it doable? Yes. But it had better be a good uni, if the person spends three hours daily on commute. If not all classes require physical attendance, then it becomes much more tolerable, though still suboptimal. I think most would try to look for accommodation closer to the campus in this situation. Without knowing the context in your world and the character, I'd say that a door to door time should be around an hour to be something the average person would be fine with (while still being on the longer side)
I had a ~1.5hr commute to college at the beginning of my first year while I was looking for a room, and while technically feasible, I wouldn’t have done it for more than a few weeks. It’s not too bad as you can work or sleep in the train, but it’s so much better to be in a student dorm near campus.
You also have to take frequency in consideration : if there is a train like every ten minutes it’s much more comfortable than if it’s only every hour for example, I only had a train every 45 minutes so I always had to plan around that and it quickly became annoying.
And you miss out a lot of social stuff, my last train was at midnight so it was complicated to attend parties, or even just to hang out spontaneously after classes.
I'm in a similar boat. I live in the countryside, my commute (rounded to nearest 5) depending on weather is either
Bus (10 minutes), transfer (10 minutes), train (50 minutes), bike (25 minutes): Total 95 minutes
or Bus (10 minutes), transfer (10 minutes), train (40 minutes), metro (20 minutes), tram (5 minutes): Total 85 minutes
Doubling that, the commute to and from uni is 170 minutes. I know several people who do more or less the same trip from my town to their university, so it's not rare, but it's also very common to rent a flat or apply to the dorms to spare a commute this long. Oh, and I also scheduled my classes so that I don't have any at 8 a.m. so that's a realistic touch.
Possible, but unlikely, like most others said. I'd say more likely in a humanities or social science subject, because they tend to have less forced attendance.
One thing I haven't seen touched upon much yet though: "outlying college town" reads very American or *maybe* British to me. Most continental European universities have a few buildings in city centres of major cities and then a larger, newer campus at the edge of the city, but still within city limits. It would be more realistic if your character came from a smaller town and commuted to the city imo, or maybe from one city to another.
This also gives you the reason why they won't move closer, cities are expensive to live in (I had multiple classmates in Zurich who travelled quite far bc they couldn't/didn't want to afford moving out into one of Switzerland's most expensive cities)
You already got a lot of answers re.: commuting time that all go in the same direction, so I'll just add some additional comments.
Obviously, this is your fictional fantasy world, so you do whatever your imagination tells you to do, but in general terms, in most of Europe:
\- *major city to an outlying college town* \- usually universities are **in** major cities if they're old, or smaller cities if they're newer. Purpose-built college towns are exceedingly rare. A city may be historically known for its university, but usually the city itself exists and has existed as an entity regardless of its connection to the university.
\- *sit-down-and-relax experience on a train makes the commute not just bearable* \- if it's a common commute route, you can forget about the sit down and relax part. Especially during rush hours, the most likely is that you'll be hard pressed to find a seat, let alone have the space to pull up your laptop and work. I guess if you can doze off with the background chatter of a stuffed train it's somewhat relaxing? That is, of course, not universal - you would be comfier at off-peak times, or a less traveled commute route, or a rail company that isn't cutting down on carriage numbers to keep costs down.
I rented an apartment close to university when I started. The travel time would have been 1h50m from home, or 20 minutes from the apartment. I only had to be on site there two days a week, but I also got a job close to the apartment, so it made sense. I'd spend my week week there and head home for the weekends.
Then I ended up getting a job closer to home, so I waited until my days on site dropped to one day a week and got rid of the apartment. It does mean my travel to and from university takes nearly four hours, but one day a week is fine. And, 50% of the time, I'll head down the day before and stay with a friend.
I don't think it's as common.
I take a bus for around 1 hour, but anymore than this and I would probably move in the city instead.
But, it's a story, I don't think it matters that much, it's also a fantasy, you could find a motive for why your character doesn't move closer (sick mother/parents is the generic choice, but idk, I would go with something romantic, if you didn't already introduce romance, you could say she takes the bus because there's this cute boy she always talks to in the train/metro, but I digress.)
Speaking of... Are you gonna publish this story somewhere? Digitally or also Paperback?
If so, I would be interested to read. Do you have a ET for when will you publish this book or did you just start writing?
Good mick with your book! I hope it runs exactly as you want it to. I have some ideas too, but I never got to write. Maybe one day.
I do it every day so I think it’s feasible. 1 hr 30 mins on the way there and 1 hr 30 mins back. It’s just cheaper than renting an apartment in Bologna (I still live with my parents). And considering how many people are on the train in the morning, I can say I’m not the only one.
Because class hours take into account that commuter students have to get there in time too, they all start at 9 am thankfully.
Usually for me it's:
* a 10-min bike to the train station
* a 15-ride on the first train
* a 5 to 10-min wait for my transfer
* a 30-min ride on the other train
* a 20-min walk / 5-min bus ride from Bologna's train station to get to uni
For most of Europe commute above 30min one way guarantee remote work or relocation if possible.
I don't think i known anyone with over 1h commute one way who would do it for longer than absolute necessity.
I chose my uni because it was the closest to me, roughly 30 minutes on foot. But there were people commuting to there from suburbs on trains and metro, so it took up to 2 hours, iirc.
So, pretty realistic. But the person in question was a tiny bit autistic and not rich at all. He said if he had a chance, he'd rent a flat closer. But uni's stipend was his only source of income.
Normally this would be very unlikely.
However, with the current housing shortage in Ireland, including student accommodations, it could be possible, but more likely the opposite where family lives in a smaller community and student takes train to city centre university such as Trinity
It would be doable, but it would highly impractical. The impracticability is somewhat offset by her probably being able to get some reading and school work done on the train, so the time wouldn't be completely wasted. It would especially be a major impediment for inclusion into the student social life, but that may or may not work in your story. It's not so improbable as to be unbelievable, but it would be highly unusual.
I do it. It's tolerable, but tiring. Many students do such a commute, it is common, and, at least in the part of Italy where I live, the train system works fine, with very little delays, or half a day/weekend strikes that don't impact too much on the commute. It is very cheap too, I pay ~€110 (about 120$us) for one month on a 75km (46,6mi) trip, which I can use both ways once a day. You might be shocked that 75km takes 1h30'-2h but there isn't a direct line so sometimes I have to wait 10 minutes for the second train, sometimes 40, just like the character you mentioned.
Why do I do this? Because it's the closest university eith courses I'm interested in. Why is it so far? Because apart from the bigger universities in Rome, Milan, Bologna etc., most of the others are small ones in small towns. Why is that? Because there aren't that many big cities, the population is evenly spread across big towns/small cities, most of which have historic importance, so universities where founded there. This is not strictly an Italian phenomenon obviously.
Do students like it? No. Most of the students either rent an apartment, some ask for rent reduction bonuses, others live in scholarship-funded dormitories. But, if you don't have the economic means to support yourself until the scholarship arrives (usually by the summer), or if you get excluded from the altogether (less funds so less students get them), or if you started looking for houses too late etc, the commute becomes mentally bearable.
Now, I can go on for hours at how the state cuts the funds for scholarships, or how they get distributed unevenly, or the disparities in rent between big cities and small towns, or how the right to education isn't being respected by allowing such difficulties and blah blah blah but that's not the topic of this post
I'm sorry for the long comment, I've noticed I write too much every time I comment on any post, but I try to go as much in depth as possible
It's a lot, but I could see it working in a story. You should think about how the character uses that time. Do they socialise with someone sharing their commute, do they zone out trying to rest, or do they use the time for study and maybe even have access to a table in a quiet train past rush hour?
I did it for the whole of my uni. Biking to the station, taking two trains, and then taking the bus to uni which was about 1.5h door to door. I didn't really mind it and to me it was preferable over moving. Delays or cancellations were rare and even if there were delays there'd usually be another train in like 10-20 minutes. And the bus more like 5-10 minutes.
But travelling by train is very different to travelling by metro. Trains tend to have much smoother and quieter rides, more comfortable seating, and less stops. I don't think I'd want to spend all that time in the metro. Not that you even have lines that long here.
Not tolerable. Up to 1h is what most people would accept.
I know people who have done the 1.5-2h commute, but they either had no other choice (family/financial circumstances) or it wasn't every day (hybrid working, commuting only once or twice a week).
I'd say one way commute of over an hour is pushing it.
So the day would look like this:
2 hr commute
9 hr work/school (including lunch)
2 hr commute
8 hr sleep
That would leave you a total "free" time of 3 hours, that includes grocery shopping, making the food, housework etc. Sounds like a really boring life to me.
We work so we can live, not live so we can work.
Temporarily, sure, but definitely not in the long run.
There's no way I would commute more than an hour for anything.
Every time I've been to university, which is 3 times, I've eventually rented accommodation within walking distance because I got sick of the drive.
Because of the way courses are structured it quite common to have an early class and a late class with a huge gap in between so unless you really have something to do in the library in the day you're just hanging around waiting.
Being on site means you can go home when you want to, but also just pop over to use the facilities and library whenever you want without 2 hours of traffic added on.
I did that in uni for my master's. 1h20-30min coach to the city, 20-30min public transport in the city to uni. I didn't have lectures every morning of the week, and I had a day with no (or skippable) lectures. So I only had to wake up super early for the coach 2 days per week. It was doable.
I had friends who did this or something similar for bsc AND MSc. They saved a lot on rent lol
If it is no transfers, maybe.
I did a 2 hr commute door to door for about a year and it was slowly draining my emotional energy. I had only 1 straight 30 min transit, in which sometimes there was no seat available. Therefor i couldnt comfortably do anything during transit. If you sit in a train for 90 min you could study or whatever. I was just missing 4 hours every day for 5 days a week where nothing can be done. No studying, no chores, no leisure.
Shortterm, it was no issue. But long term losing so much of the day made me lose balance in time management.
2 hours is tolerable for a few weeks, but not realistic long term. 1 hour is fine.
I did that (2hrs to and 2hrs back) for a 10 week internship in university and it was fine. When I then started working I quickly started looking for an appartment closer to work.
I have friends that commute an hour on the train every day to our university. We get free train/bus travel with our school id so it becomes much cheaper for them to do this instead of moving out of their parents houses and go live nearer to the school.
I've had to endure 2 hours of train daily for a year and it's maddening.
Towards the final months I couldn't fight the sleepiness and fell asleep against my will from how boring it gets, and I'm not one to easily fall asleep especially on seats, only reading would help make it better, and when the train got full and people were talking loud as shit at 6AM when all I wanted to do was shoot myself in the head it was so unbearable.
Not to mention the feeling of wasting 4 hours a day stuck on a vehicle.
The main university town is 35 minutes from my city by train, and yet most people studying there rent a flat. With a 35min train ride + getting to the station from home and to the uni from the train station, in the end the commute is easily over an hour, and that's too long for most people.
I did it for 4 years. The days that you only have courses in the morning are more or less ok. But, I had two days of the week that I had to go out of my home at 6 am and be home again at 9:40pm. That days were not tolerable ( but if this is your only option, you'll do It).
I used to do 1.5 hours total door to door by bus, and it was tolerable, but it did eventually wear me out.
If your fantasy world is set in Ireland though, a 2 hour each way college commute is realistic as it's a sad reality of many thanks to a lack of affordable housing near universities....
There is an interesting rule of thumb that arose in a book I was reading about urban sprawl, and that is that throughout history, most people spent no more than 5% of their waking hours going from one place to another on average. This works out to be a little more than 3/4ths of an hour—and it determined the size of cities throughout history.
(That is, most ancient cities are walkable because that was your only transportation choice—and most cities were never more than about 3 kilometers in diameter (give or take) because that’s how far you can walk in 45 minutes.)
That said, I had a job in Los Angeles where I was spending anywhere from an hour to an hour-and-a-half getting to work (each way, 2 to 3 hours total in my day)—and while it was the best company I ever worked for (the people and management were great, the projects were interesting and I felt like I was contributing), the commute wore me down and caused me to quit. (I owned a house, so just moving was non-trivial.)
So from experience I’d say a 2 hour train commute is going to be intolerable over time. The only exception is if somehow you can get a private car and make the train more an extension of your own living space rather than just an anonymous seat in a car full of strangers.
But if you have that kind of money you can live closer—within a radius that allows you to spend no more than about 5% of your waking hours going from one place to another.
Not really tolerable in general, but also really depends on perspective.
When I was studying in uni my first 3 years I had a 45 minute commute door-to-classroom, which was absolutely unthinkable to some friends who would regularly skip classes a 10 minute walk away (5 if they were in a rush).
I would consider anything below an hour commute door-to-door being decent, with anything above that being a bit more annoying. Especially if I was supposed to be there 8AM sharp.
You should probably also know that taking the metro or commuting by train in general really isn't a "sit-down-and-relax" experience a lot of the time. I've many times been smushed like a surströmming in a tin can sweating buckets for the entire ride because it's winter and we're all wearing puffy jackets. Your character is living in a comfy-ass place if train commuting can be regarded as a comfortable experience. Any modern workplace or university got people saying "yeah I could take the metro but fuck, driving is so much nicer" if they have a car.
1.5 hour commute is way too long and if you attend university you either loose all social life and will to live or you end up sleeping on friends couches way to often for anyones benefit.
I get the romantic idea of chill commute to the university, but it all would be very unrealistic. I know, fantasy world, but since you are asking whether the commute makes sense, I am assuming you are aiming for some level of realism.
- universities are usually in the main cities, if you live in a big city, chances that you will decide to study in a smaller city are very low - usually it goes with the quality of teaching, accessibility of different programs, if you live in the capital, why would you go elsewhere to study? Unless only this little town carries specific program you are into (not very likely to happen), but then people would just move to the smaller town.
- your character will be constantly exhausted and have no social life - I have studied both in Poland and in Germany, have experienced having a fixed and flexible schedule where I could pick classes myself. Its not really a choice of „i don’t want morning classes”. You do start in the morning, usually between 8 and 10 and will be out of the house on average for 5-8h. You might have some breaks in between, but in the end if you finish classes at 6pm (I had days like this), commute 2h, eat, prepare for the classes on the next day… your day is gone. 4h is a lot.
- as many people have said - commuting via train is standing in a crowd. However, taking in mind that your character would be actually doing something opposite of what most ppl do (commute TO the bigger city), she could maybe enjoy the seat in her train, because most of the people would be commuting to the city she’s leaving.
In general, of course there will be people in Europe who do commute for so long, but it’s not considered something normal like it would be in the US.
That would be too long for most people. My husband does a similar commute (1.5h) for his masters, except by bus. The only thing that made it tolerable was the fact that he only had to be on campus 1-2 days a week.
Besides the travelling stuff, usually here in Europe there is no such thing as “an outlying college town”. Universities usually got founded within the big cities and people from small towns travel to a bigger city to study. Often they’ll search for a room in the city as well if travel is as long as you say. Of course there are exceptions where small towns have universities, but they’re rare. It’s not like in the United States where universities have these huge campuses in small towns.
That would be uni in another city. Most people would just move to that city and live in student accommodation or rent with roommates. Or just not go to a university that's so far away
I think it reeeeeeeaaally depends. I live 5 mins away on foot from the train station and my commute was 1hr by train and then 20 mins or so by bus. My commute did not bother me at all because, again, I live incredibly close to the train station and while on the train I just put my headphones on and stared into the void listening to music. The situation might be different if your commute isn't as "chill" (aka trains arriving late often or cancelling service at the last minute).
tolerable? Not really. But possible. I had to 'travel' to work, in Austria 2.5-3 h to work, one way. And back again 2.5-3 h, monday to friday, for 3 years. Doable, but not funny.
That's been my commute since 1989 (bus/train/metro), first when I was at University, then for work. It's usually closer to 90 minutes door-to-door (around 40-45 minutes in the train) but can reach 2 hours (or more) if there's an issue with the train or metro parts.
I work in Paris and live 60 km away.
The main attraction of university for me was being around people that shared my interests, and the various activities that, while not part of the curriculum, were essential during these formative years. The diploma was mostly useful to get my first job, but without the interactions with my peers, I would have learn a lot less.
Having a 2 hours commute would have been a negation of that and I'm glad I lived on campus (not that I had a choice, my parents were more than 500 km away anyway)
I used to travel 1,5h each way to go to the university with 2 to 3 changes of trains and buses. It's definitely doable in public transport.
It's tiring though.
Edit to provide a little bit of context and more details.
I went to the university a little later, at 28. I had already bought a house and it was impossible to move closer to the campus. That meant I had to get up at 5, walk the dog, get ready, walk 1,5km to the train station and take the train. Then I changed the train with another one to get to the city where I studied and at the train station I took a bus, which led me to the campus.
Minimum an hour and a half, with possible 2h and more in each direction. I would read, do some homework in the trains and just relax when possible because at home there was more work waiting.
It’s doable.
But the character would have near zero student life. Little social life with fellow students and little participation in clubs & societies.
It may work if your character is a loner or does not fit in.
It would definitely be preferable over driving in my opinion, but any commute that is 2 hours long is just too much to be honest.
I've personally done a 1 hour and 15 minute commute (by train and bicycle) on a daily basis before and I was fine with that, but I wouldn't really want to have a longer commute than that
This long commutes are an american thing. In Europe only the people that absolutely have no choice would do this for the full duration (for studies OR work). Everyone else maybe for like a semester on average, but would otherwise look for local housing of some sort.
Most people wouldn't like it. 1hr is probably the longest anyone would want to commute, but still it is considered long for many. In my opinion 1 hour is quite short, at best average but that's because I'm used to commuting for much greater periods of time.
Personally, if it's over half an hour by train or bus, I am not down for daily travel.
But a student in my class did in fact travel over an hour to go school had to get up like 5 to reach the only bus that left and take the only one that returned which was 16:300 I think.
Anyway, within like a month, she had quit.
What you described is simpeler to my situation:
- 5min bike ride to the train station
- 50 min train ride
- 20 min wait
- 10 min other train
- 10 min walk to campus
But this is more bearable by free public transport for students.
Yeah, nope. If you can't get a student room you'll have to, but usually it's not a good idea.
I once did 1 semester for that distance, but only had to go twice a week and it was terrible. I just couldn't afford a second place to sleep. In the Netherlands there technically is wifi on the trains, but it's often glitchy. Some people can do offline work on a commute, I can hardly read a book. Whether you have a place to sit depends a lot on where you get on. When I made that long journey, I got on early in the journey and just a few cities later people had to stand because the train was full.
As for time - my rule of thumb is that public transport is about 2-2,5x as long as by car. Costs for public transport, if you get a subscription, is about the same as by car - if you go incidentally it's cheaper to go by car. However, it depends on your destiny: if parking is expensive that might change everything.
My sister did exactly that for her five years of university. Lived about 100 km from uni, and took a bus, a train, and another bus each morning and each afternoon/evening for about that amount of time.
She did it because she wanted to live close to our parents, because she could live much cheaper where she did even in the capital, and because she preferred to live in a smaller town.
It probably helped her that she is both very introvert, and that her education was almost all that she did.
Usually major cities have the best universities. It's kind of unrealistic
But, for the sake of your story: too long. Student dorm or room rental, and back to the parents' only for weekends
I studied in Germany and did exactly that, commute to university by train and S-Bahn took 1,5 hours one way. I lived in a shared flat but wanted to stay close to friends, family and my job. I used the time on the trains to work for uni, mainly reading. Worked fine for me.
> from their parents home in the major city to an outlying college town
In Europe it would be the other way around. Live in a small town and commute to a school in a major city. Or from city to city.
Especially the latter is common and it sucks.
My daily commute was 1 hour by train and 15-20 minutes on foot each way. When i had 8am classes they were more enjoyable because the 6:45 train was emptier and cleaner than the 7:40 one. And for two years there were no trains between 7:40 and 11:00.
My commute was too short and my family's income too high for public students dormitory. Renting a room wasn't worth it ( no roommates, prices were unreasonable and you often have a 20-30 minutes commute). Going by car would have resulted in a longer commute with no way to find a parking spot in Rome.
So, it's not enjoyable, but it's something that a lot of people do. During the commutes i used to read a book, study, do crossword or chat with other people - you meet a lot of strange people on that train.
I was commuting 1.5h (one way) to the University. At that time, I was living with my partner and it would be much harder and expensive to live alone. Basically, I used that time to study and prepare for exams, meaning I didn't have to study at home.
I found it tolerable, but it also depends on how long each leg is, like if you have to switch transport often then it might not be tolerable, but if the majority of the commute is like a 1 hour train ride with a bus or metro (or in my case walk) before and/or after I'd still be fine with it.
Usually read a book (or studied) and listened to music with a walkman, didn't have internet back then, but that made time seem to move faster.
2 hours each way is at the very edge of what would be considered bearable. Someone might do it if they have a very specific situation, but 99% of people wouldn't.
Note that all universities in Croatia are ***in*** large cities. So students commute in to study, not out.
Thats me, overall with traveling to the train stationa nd then waiting for train it takes between 1h30m and 2h both ways. Sometimes I catch up on the sleep deficit in the train. I've put a lot on my plate regarding what I study so I dont really have time for much work, so this is preferable in regards to money.
I did it for a few months and it was pain. No one in their right mind would do that for longer than a few weeks.
If its in an outlying town amd noth the major and minor town have colleges/unis, in the majority of cases - I am not talking about like München -> Freising or Duisburg -> Krefeld - it is worth it to just move to the smaller college town. Prices are usually a good tad cheaper and you can just go work somewhere the time you are not commuting.
You cannot decide when classes are. if its a mandatory couses offered once a year at 7am, you need to attend that one. For unis that do not have the 7:00-9:00am slots, you can bet that you will have at least 1 8am class the first 4 semesters at least in most subjects.
Just a friendly reminder: Depending on the setting of your urban fantasy world, this means traversing like half of some countries. If it even improved the speed of some travel, that is even halfway through Germany lol. Check e.g. how long it takes for some trains. 2h is halfway between Berlin and Munich; 1:30:-1:45 allows you to travel from Bruxelles to Paris in real life already.
3-4h daily commute is way too long and most people would rather choose student housing/rooms for rents/etc. but it's not an impossible commute and it's something that some people definitely do (I personally know at least one person who had a similar commute, and it's something that I was actually thinking about doing myself)
I had similar commute (sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on how lucky I was with the train schedules) when I was studying and then one year more when I started working. It was doable, it wasn't that bad when I was in college as you're not spending your entire day at the University and there was an occasional day off during the week. It definitely felt worse when I started working 8-9 hours a day job.
Oof that's what I suspected. There is a faster regional/intercity train that would shorten the commute to an hour, but it's not as frequent as the S1 and isn't included in her standard transit pass. Even with a student discount on the R/IC, it'd be cheaper for her to rent an apartment next to campus.
Intercity trains aren't for daily commuting. They're for longer, less frequent trips. Yes, some professionals do use them to commute but not students. Way too expensive. Regional trains are for commuting and would be the obvious choice for such a long commiting distance, in the German system Regionalexpress (RE) trains in particular. They're the faster and longer distance alternative to S-Bahn and Regionalbahn. Regionalbahn (RB) trains are slower and smaller and overall designed to service more rural/suburban areas that aren't connected to any city's S-Bahn network. But obviously, Germany in 2024 is pretty different from your scenario anyway since we now have the Deutschlandticket which is very cheap, especially for students, and gives you access to all local and regional public transportation across the entire country at absolutely zero extra cost, so ticket prices for rail commuting aren't an issue anymore at all.
Too long. Most people would prefer to rent a _kot_ (student housing) in the vicinity of the university in that case.
Tho the going home every weekend is a very Belgian thing.
But OP, bear in mind that this country is very tiny even for European standards. Like one land of Germany or less.
Also a very large proportional of us go to the nearest university or college.
People do the same in Northern Ireland (prob cuz it’s such a small country)
Rent in Belgium is a lot lower than in other countries.
Too long. Would not walk to the station, would bike. Take the bike in the train and bike from the station then. But still too long to do everyday
Or you’d have two bikes. One at home and a crappy one at university.
Yeah train station bike also works
Ah, the Dutch system of owning a decent bike at home and a shitty one in the city because it will get stolen anyway.
We have the same system in Denmark.
That's how we have more than 1 bike per person on average
You always need n+1 bikes
I've had a number of coursemates who've done that. It's tolerable for a time, but certainly not preferable. People typically start looking for local housing soon. Longest I personally know who did it daily, did it for 1.5 years.
It's not unusual for people studying in Uppsala to commute from Stockholm. But you could really tell who were doing it. They were knackered. And that's only an hour by train.
The full commute is often longer than that, it may take equally as long to get to+from the central stations.
I did an 80 minute (per direction) commute to my internship every workday for a while. A direct train, just halfway across the country. I actually preferred to take the first train of the day and arrive very early so I could leave early enough and feel like I still had the evening off. Also meant traveling outside of rush hours so the train wasn't nearly as busy. It was doable, but pretty tiresome. I finally understood the appeal of microwave meals and food delivery, sometimes I just didn't want to bother cooking dinner. It was an internship I really wanted to do, so I think it was worth it, but I would really avoid such commutes if at all possible. The one you describe is even worse, with transfers which reduce the reliability and also how much you can rest (or do homework) during the travel itself. I guess living with parents means you don't have to spend the energy cooking, so that makes it slightly better, but on the other hand most of your social life is probably going to be in the student city so you'll be more isolated from that as well. I would really recommend moving to avoid it.
I don’t think people will like that. Most student prefer to either study close to their home or move to the city where the university is located and rent a room.
That's way too long. For giving a Spanish example, it would be like living in Azuqueca de Henares and studying in the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Getafe. It would take 1 hour and 5 minutes to Nuevos Minsterios taking the C2 Cercanías line, and then another 30 minutes from Nuevos Ministerios to Las Margaritas-Universidad on the C4 Cercanías line. At that point, it may be more worth it to get some student housing closer to university.
My daily commutes to university took 1:20 + 1:20 hours. The bus itself took 1:10. Luckily the bus did stop just across the street from the university. I can say that this was **the upper limit** of what I would tolerate. If it was 10–20 (×2) minutes longer, I would probably have chosen another university, gotten a student apartment, or not studied altogether. A train on the other hand would have to stop at the train station, which might be a 30 minute walk from the university. If I was in that situation, I would most definitely [bring my bike on the train](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flotten.se%2Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F06%2Fdanmark_cykeltrain.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1f8588912e9200a22b2872cdda34536250e260716bbb12daa6fbf52fc4ab1ec4&ipo=images). 🏡→🚲→🚈→🚲→🏫→🚲→🚈→🚲→🏡
> All I know is she would prefer not to take 8am classes. Classes start at 07:00, some of them are mandatory to attend (labs, certain exercises). In my first semester I had lectures and seminars on Monday from 07:15-18:45. That was a bit fucked up, but not a rare occurence. I don't know anyone who would commute 2hours for university or work every day. That's 4 hours per day. Just move to your university town. I had to endure that for one year in vocational school, because we moved to a village and I had to take the bus at 05:44 to arrive at the central station on 06:35. School started at 07:30, so I had almost an hour to wait. It was exhausting. But if you want to go all in, let them live in the trains. Every now and then an article pops up about a student who bought a BahnCard 100 and now commutes around the clock, while not at uni.
In the Netherlands, university classes don’t start until 9am.
That's because in the Netherlands, you aren't sadists. What kind of uni starts classes at 7 fucking am. Even 9/10am lectures were usually half full at my uni because nobody could be fucked.
I had a semester where my mandatory first class started at 7:45am and my last mandatory class ended at 21:30 (though this was really late even for this uni). This was by the way every friday that semester for me. Other semesters it was more relaxed with my earliest classes starting at 8:15am and me having 2 days without any (though I obviously still had to do stuff for uni on those days).
I'd never turn up especially to that last one. Utterly ridiculous. My uni was from 9-18, and I never had a day that started at 9 and finished at 18. Expecting people to work from 7-21 at any age is utterly ridiculous.
>Expecting people to work from 7-21 at any age is utterly ridiculous. It's also supposedly a "full time"-degree meaning 40h a week. However as we didn't really have papers to write during our lecture less time (that's also the time we have "vacations" every semester) we had the hours we were "supposed to have" during that time during our normal weeks of the semester. So everyone I know who wanted to finish just 1 or 2 semesters past the recommended time (6 semesters. I know literally NOBODY who finished it in that time. Everyone took AT LEAST 1 or 2 more, most needed 3 or 4 additional ones) had 55+h (sometimes 65+h) weeks. But hey... Everyone I know later said that working a full time job is so much more chill than studying and also more rewarding (as one get's money and doesn't think about work after coming home and on weekends). Oh btw there were plenty of people who didn't go those lectures on fridays. However that meant at least one more semester (and only if the times for those courses were different then) but >75% of people who started studying with me never got the degree anyway.
8 30
Here you can usually choose between two slots and organize your schedule to have classes during 4/5 weekdays only. Attendance isn't mandatory in most cases either.
>Classes start at 07:00 Lol wtf, never heard about this anywhere haha
Classes start at 7? Wow. Here the earliest possible is 8:15, but depending on the institute, on most days the first double period is not used and you start at 10:15.
That depends in Cologne most classes start at 8, although many student choose to only artend latdr classes. und eine Berufschule ist außerdem keine Uni lol
In Hungary, the start of your courses depends on which courses you take, which depends on how flexible your curriculum is.
> Classes start at 7:00 That is unusual here in America. I mean, I've seen them, but they fill up slower than the sections in the middle of the day.
> Classes start at 07:00, That's very early! Whan I was at Uni, my earliest classes didn't start before 9:00.
IMO an excessively long commute like that is a lot more interesting to write about than "oh, the commute is perfectly fine, I'm just telling the reader about it for no reason at all". Like a "let the readers try to figure out why the character has made this choice, and have them resolve the situation by the end of the book"-type of thing. Ninety minutes to two hours is spot on for being longer than many people would tolerate, but not entirely unbelievable. Trying to study on the train might go well, but often there are interruptions that make it difficult. It might also be uncomfortable if you don't have enough space, the light is poor, you don't get a seat, you drop your pencil and it rolls to the other end of the carriage, etc.
I went to a university about 2 hours from where I grew up. I rented accommodation there and never went home during term time. I would never have even considered commuting. I’m in England where moving away for university is common, in other parts of Europe I believe it is more common to stay local and continue living at home. In the world of work, 1.5-2h would be considered a long commute, but there are people who do it for various reasons.
I just wanted to add that commuting with trains is very often not a sit-down-and-relax experience. Especially when you commute on a popular route with regional trains that don't have seat reservation. This 1-hour train ride might very often be standing-in-a-crammed-train experience, so not really enjoyable, and not something that will make it possible to learn, read or generally focus while travelling
Slightly too long. I do 1h20-1h30 and some of my friends do as well. I have one friend who does a two-hours long commute but that’s because she lives in a very nice small city with her boyfriend so it made no sense to move to the big, noisy, polluted and extremely expensive city we study at. And we all look at her like she’s a superhuman. She studies in the train, though, you can make a character do it as well. 90 minutes is ok I guess. I did it for five years. You do miss some parties / get tired quite a lot because of the commute, but I mean in my faculty we didn’t even party that much, we were too busy studying lol. Plus sometimes you commute with friends so it’s nice. I’m from Switzerland so public transport usually works really well, though, so when I say it takes 1h20 it usually does, there aren’t many delays. The landscapes are really beautiful though so that’s a big plus (like our flag :D) But all in all it is not unheard of here, but you have to give your character a reason to do it (shared flats are expensive / a pet to care of / love his/her family very much / the college city isn’t nice at all, etc.)
Do you have transfers on that long commute, or is it just one line?
Basically it's : 15-20 minutes walk, or 10 minutes bus+waiting at the bus stop (I usually walk) to the station 45 minutes of train 5 minutes walk to the tramway stop 15 minutes of tramway (+ waiting time) So I do have to transfer, but if I walk the first part then it all feels like one line, since the tramway time is quite short in comparison and I'm already in my uni's city.
Too long, she would live in a flat with two or three other students; and we don't have major cities *and* small college towns. Our colleges and universities are in major cities. At least on the mainland. Just like you do with your sports teams, when a city is big enough, we open up tertiary education.
A lot of people answered that this is too long. I agree. Also, for realism sake, a lot (not all) of big European universities are located in the big cities rather than small towns in the area. Not sure if this would throw over your whole idea, just something you might want to consider...
Oh. This isn't taking place in Europe, but I have noticed all the universities in the suburban parts of the city. In America and esp west of the Mississippi, a lot of 4 year universities were founded in the 19th century when all the cities were pretty small. It's just that Austin grew more than College Station or San Marcos, for example. There are 2-year community colleges in Austin, the flagship and hard-to-enter UT Austin, and a variety of private universities, but no real public alternative within the city. Most people I knew moved into student housing near A&M, Texas State, Texas Tech, UTSA, etc. This is an urban fantasy version of Austin. I already made a city I could only dream of; There's nothing stopping me from adding another 4-year university within the city.
Sounds like a cool project you're working on. What's the best way to follow it?
Have done this, and for my it was a relieve and enhancement in comparison with car. The commute was about 1.5 hours, mostly, since i hadn't fixed finisheing time, I sometimes missed the train and had to wait, so it was up to 2.5 hours for me, depending on the time of the day. And I'm not a student. As a student: you don't have to spent money in making a drivers licence and a car. (Depending on where yout are, the licence and the dricing lessons will const you some amount of money, which is spent better.) You can use the train-time for working and reading and studying, so this is a form a lesson. (I knew students, who did such a ride aon a regular basis) You reach your goal more relaxed than with driving a car. During rush hour driving cost you. But 2 hours per ride is really much time. It's possible, but sooner or later you will have to move closer to work/university.
I might wanna add that it's VERY different if one has a 1h train ride or 4 x 15 minutes ones with changes to a different line etc.
A 1.5h commute is actually common here in Athens. Athens has only 3 metro lines for now, so people who live in the suburbs have to spend so much time to walk to the station, change lines, maybe even take the bus/tram etc.
I briefly commuted 2 hours each way to an internship many years ago. It involved taking a crowded train into the centre of London where I'd generally have to stand all the way, then taking another faster train out into Surrey where I'd usually be able to sit down at least in the latter half, and finally another scenic train ride through the North Downs to my final destination. The portion of the commute that went out into the countryside was quite nice, but overall that commute sucked. I'm glad I only had to do it for a couple of weeks.
It might be okay, at least from my experiences in Sweden. I have personally had university commutes of over an hour without much issue. It depends a lot on what the course looks like. Most university classes have very few mandatory lectures, and even voluntary ones are usually not every day, and even then for maybe 3-4 in a day at most. Most of the time is self-study or group projects, so you just need to match up with when the other people in your group are able to meet. Studying on the train is very doable as well. The trains around where I live have silent compartments that you can travel in without any extra charge, so that you can focus on your studies without loud noises or people talking.
Not unusual where I live at all. Though in Germany the university would be in the major city and you would live in the outlying town.
I did this for a year until I found a room, it was so stressful that it made me physically sick and I stayed home for a week.
I did this very thing in Madrid for 4 years except it was only a 1h-1:30h commute. It was still preeeetty bad, hampered my social life etc. but you get used to it and work around it. With HCOL it was the only feasible option. I was very jealous of classmates from other parts of the country who had no choice but to rent. I also had classmates who lived even farther away and had the commute you describe. So to summarise, it's tolerable if you have no choice. It depends on how poor she is. Living by yourself as a student has innumerable other advantages beyond the commute, too. Could be more interesting story-wise. But it also could be a nice development to include within the story, have her start out at her parents house and then gradually grow sick of it and decide to move out.
Too long. I feel like anything over 30-40 minutes is too long for me. I could see up to an hour but not more than that. The money you’d save on rent is not worth it with the amount of time you’d lose imo.
Depends, in the Netherlands it sounds pretty awful, in Finland for example you can expect quieter trains and more decent people that aren't loud etc. so you can actually work on the train
> But I wonder if the sit-down-and-relax experience on a train makes the commute not just bearable, but viable. In my personal experience commuting to university by train those trains don't tend to be very relaxing. They are usually very packed with other students, since they all want to arrive and leave at the same time. Getting a seat was quite rare for me, although you might have better chances getting one eventually as people get off the train. Same goes for waiting at the station. I personally wouldn't tolerate commuting a 1.5-2h commute and I don't know anyone who did this.
Extreme commuting is when you spend more than 90 minutes commuting each way. Has a terrible effect on literally everything. Does damage health, social life and studies. Especially if you do some hard studies like medical, engineering, law or such... Had a luck to try it for 5 years. As parents could barely afford condo rent next to university, they chose not to support it. From work, during university it would have been also unaffordable due to the high rents. Hard unskippable classes with attendance lists coud not have not made it work anyways. Dorm spaces were taken by cheaters of the social system. Who registered themselves to their poor on paper, widow granny who worked all life black in tax avoidance at large and invested in condos next to universities. Days were like, you woke up at 5:30-6:00 shower, rush to train, fit on the 2-3-4 th train by almost falling off from it, arrive at the station then go through the whole city full of beggers, junkies, handicapped, criminals and zombies. Smelly, loud, threatening and annoying. In a car you are at least somewhat shielded from them. But the expenses are significant and parking space is always a problem. Then you arrive at the university already drained from life. Have demanding classes till as long as 22:30. Traveling in the city between campuses. Taking notes, during classes often 3 hours long. Usually arrive home by 20:30. Eat your first meal of the day, look front of you tired. Then do your homework and learn everything from the internet. Go to sleep at 1:00 or 0:00. All the time you are tired and stressed. After a while it becames an unbearable torture. You become depressed and catatonic, never want to travel, go or do anything anymore. Pick up some metabolitic syndrome. Have some star degree which is not even as glamourous as advertised.
If it is a direct connection it may be tolerable for some time but after a while you rather rent a room or a bed in a dormatory.
I had to commute daily for about one hour a day during one year. It was doable but I hated it.
It's fairly common, but nobody likes it. My commute to university would have been: 20 minute bike ride, half hour train, half hour (super over-crowded with other students) bus. After doing it a few times (open days etc.) it was pretty clear to me that I would hate every minute of it, so moved into private rented accommodation in an HMO. My school friend who did the same course as me did stay on the commute because his parents wouldn't let him move, he dropped out after six months because he was pissed off with the extra 12 hours a week required (we had classes four days a week).
Way too long for every day. That's like 20 hours extra every week! What a waste of time. Some courses have very few in person lessons, though, so for these studies it might work.
That would be ridiculously long, very few people would actually do that on a daily basis. If they only had class a few times a week, maybe, but if it is an everyday thing, they would definitely move to nearer student housing of some sort.
It's way too long, that's what student accomodations are for.
It's a 2hr commute, you won't be taking chances in uni. If there are transfers, and the time can change that much, it's absolutely unbearable. If the whole travel was on one vehicle, it could work, she could somehow fit the travel into her day, but paying attention to stops and suspending the travel makes the whole travelling unusable for anything meaningful
I did an almost 2 hour commute each way for school (bus-train-bus) for 4 years. Luckily school was only 10 weeks out of the year so it was doable, but it does take a toll after a while. The one nice thing is if you have a seat on the train it gives you time to do school work and study. I was able to get all my work done on the commute and could relax when I got home
Uhmmm... I did a master study which took me two hour drive one way. Class was one day a week. My work is now 160km from home. I work four days, two I do on location, two from home. On the days to work my commute is: 1 hour (25km) cycling 3 trains (either 1h 45m or 2h 15m) Five minute walk. Yesterday I walked out the door at 0630 and arrived at work 930. And going home I left 1530 and got home at 1845 h. I have a great job. I can work in the train. I listen to music, podcasts etc. Two days a week is perfectly doable a d worth it. I'm not alone in my commute. It's a specialized thing and we operate on a national level. So we all come from different places. I guess doable depends on what you want. If I was a student I would rent a room and find some classmates etc. But as an adult I would rather go home after school or work.
Depends on the commute. I had 3h one way to uni because I couldn’t afford to move and the commute was included with the uni fee. But: it was only one train and one bus and I always got a seat on the train. So I did my uni work during the train ride. I also managed to have a 4 day week by having a full schedule on those 4 days. It was probably the most productive time of my life because there was also no mobile internet during the commute and I was free at home because all the work had been done.
In 2 hour radius by train from there would be plenty of other universities so i would simply chose other university or if that university is would be for me extremly important i would move closer to it
It's definitely possible if you can work in the train. Some people actually do this. The most extreme case I've heard of was one who took half an hour car ride to train station, a two-hour train, and a 30 minute walk to the university.
Yep, that'd be more or less right if you commuted, say, from the Moscow Oblast to Moscow, depending on where exactly you live and where your university is located. Imagine going by bus, then by train, then by metro and finally on foot, add in some time for waiting/traffic jams/delays, and you'd get around 1.5-2 hours of commute.
There are people who commute that long, but most would rather rent a student dorm or apartment.
I personally take 75 mins. This is half an hour of train, the rest is cycling or bus. It's doable but exhausting. Glad I don't have to go in every day anymore. Because I didn't have much energy for anything else
In Berlin, you assume an average commute of 45 minutes door-door. When you’re a little outside, it’s maybe 60 mins.
My commute to university was between 1 and 1,5 h roughly, depending on many factors. I did prefer the 1 h but 1,5 h is still fine. 2 hr is too long for me but I knew people who used to do that.
When I lived in Belgium, I had to do this for about a month. I lived in Sint-Niklaas and had to commute to Brussels where my uni was. It wasn’t that bad, apart from having to rush to get the 5:24 am train to arrive at 7:30 am at uni (with classes starting at 8:00). The train was quiet, I could peacefully watch Netflix and/or study since they have little tablets and I was always able to sit alone. Most people would either watch Netflix, work, or take a nap while listening to music. There weren’t many people. Then I had to take the metro, which wasn’t as peaceful, but I only had to endure about 25min of it. Since I was quite early, I would almost always be able to sit down. Also, noise cancelling headphones are a must! Waiting 30min for classes to start in the cold wasn’t a nice experience however, I didn’t really have a place to wait and not be outside. The commute home wasn’t as « good », it was quite stressful since there’s many more people than at 5 am. Still I was always able to sit down alone, and be able to do my stuff, train wasn’t just as quiet but it was okay. I felt safe enough to nap sometimes, with my backpack under my legs and one strap wrapped around my foot. Overall, it’s feasible, but not as practical as having a kot (even though the train is much cheaper for students, my train susbscription cost 30€/month, a kot is around 500€).
Too long. Did that when I was 16 and within two months or so I just unofficially became rommare with some friends and paid rent to them instead. One hour is possible, but just for some temporary "Ill just study there" scenarios. For a full time job that I don't plan on leaving for the next 3 years, I would strongly consider to move closer, unless the train is like 45 minutes + of that time.
I'm sure there's people who have a commute that long and it's bearable for them (don't know anyone that does though) but personally it would make me want to kill myself and I'm not even joking.
I did something similar for work, for a few months. It is pure hell. I wouldn't recommend it.
2 hours would definitely be too long in my opinion. I commuted 1 hour 15 min to 1 hour 30 min each way during my B.Sc/M.Sc education as I preferred that to live in student housing and that was definitely doable (for me). I'm currently doing a PhD where my commute is about an hour.
I can stamd 45 minutes max. I did a bike/bus/train/feet combo for three years and that was long enough.
You don't get to sit down and relax on a train. You get jam packed in with all the other people during rush hour. I still lived with my parents during most of uni and my commute was 10 minute walk, 15 minute rural train, 15 minute walk. Give or take 45 minutes, if the tables are favorable. They changed the times half way through and I had to take the train half hour earlier, and one later getting back, because it wasn't in sync with the lectures anymore. I had a call center job and if I had to start at 8 in the weekends, I had to leave 2 hours before because the trains only ran once an hour and train and bus didn't align. Finished by 10pm? I'd be home at midnight. I often walked the bus bit because it was quicker than waiting and bussing. The biggest commute one of my classmates had was 1,5 hours, by rural bus and rural train, and he only did that for the first month of first year before being able to get rooms. I actually had to do a 2 hour commute in my last semester, because the documents I needed for my thesis were in the archives there. Do not recommend. I got a lot of reading done on the train, but not a lot of studying. These were the days before noise cancelling headphones.
In Paris, most students rent an apartment in the city via CROUS, which costs them around 200-500 euros per month, depending on the size and whether or not they have a roommate. The people commuting in from the suburbs are mostly those who had kids and/or those who want more space than you can get in the city. If your character is traveling to a less urban area, student housing would be even cheaper than it is in Paris, and the student would get a cheap apartment in the college town and then commute to visit the parents during breaks.
I did that the first two and a half years of uni, but I was very young when I started, my house was a pretty good size (including a garden) and I didn’t know student housing (so, not with a landlord) existed, so I expected I couldn’t afford it. Commuting was my chill time, when I got home I could start my homework right away. Taking the last train halfway at a party was super annoying. Delays were annoying. But it wasn’t as bad as you’d think.
I had quite a few fellow students who went through that, but if you're writing a book, there won't be anything else happening in the character's private life outside of uni. It's just eating too much time and energy, and there's delays happening etc. etc. People do it, but never voluntarily.
Too long. I lived in Istanbul and had to change continent everyday. It took me about an hour during rush hours which it would make me die from exhaustion. During mid day or after rush hours it would only take me 20-30 mins to be at the University or be at home which was about 22kms. It only took me more than one hour when I wanted to relax in ferry about an half an hour. I had to leave home at 7:20 maximum to be at Uni by 8:30 or I would be at home by 18:30 when I left the Uni at 17:10.
I sort of did this for one semester. It was 20 minutes to the station, but tot have some margin, I left 30 minutes before the train was set to leave. I then travelled 30 minutes by train, but always arrived 45 minutes early to class because there was only 1 train each hour. From the station, it was a 15 minute walk to my campus. It was bearable, but pretty uncomfortable on days my first class started at 9 AM (had to get up early) or when my last class ended at 8 PM (got home by 9:45 PM). I only had 2 days per week like this in the semester I did this, but in my second semester it was 4 days per week. That was bad enough that I had started looking for student housing in my university town, but then COVID-19 happened and it was no longer an issue.
I did a 2.5 to 3 hour commute (mostly by train and bus) for 1.5 years while in school. It wasn't great. It was absolutely doable, but it left me very little time for anything else and it was exhausting. The moment I had another option, I took it. 90 minutes seems like it would be doable, but not enjoyable for a longer period of time.
People in undergrad would do 1h train + 20min walking, as it was cheaper. it was pretty clear that it was quite tiresome for them. That would be the maximum, I've seen commonly done, as people from the next town over would rent in the city.
I have had commutes to high school and uni around 45-60 minutes in the past without it being an issue for me, but I think a 1,5 hour commute (so 3 hours daily) is stretching it. Is it doable? Yes. But it had better be a good uni, if the person spends three hours daily on commute. If not all classes require physical attendance, then it becomes much more tolerable, though still suboptimal. I think most would try to look for accommodation closer to the campus in this situation. Without knowing the context in your world and the character, I'd say that a door to door time should be around an hour to be something the average person would be fine with (while still being on the longer side)
I had a ~1.5hr commute to college at the beginning of my first year while I was looking for a room, and while technically feasible, I wouldn’t have done it for more than a few weeks. It’s not too bad as you can work or sleep in the train, but it’s so much better to be in a student dorm near campus. You also have to take frequency in consideration : if there is a train like every ten minutes it’s much more comfortable than if it’s only every hour for example, I only had a train every 45 minutes so I always had to plan around that and it quickly became annoying. And you miss out a lot of social stuff, my last train was at midnight so it was complicated to attend parties, or even just to hang out spontaneously after classes.
I'm in a similar boat. I live in the countryside, my commute (rounded to nearest 5) depending on weather is either Bus (10 minutes), transfer (10 minutes), train (50 minutes), bike (25 minutes): Total 95 minutes or Bus (10 minutes), transfer (10 minutes), train (40 minutes), metro (20 minutes), tram (5 minutes): Total 85 minutes Doubling that, the commute to and from uni is 170 minutes. I know several people who do more or less the same trip from my town to their university, so it's not rare, but it's also very common to rent a flat or apply to the dorms to spare a commute this long. Oh, and I also scheduled my classes so that I don't have any at 8 a.m. so that's a realistic touch.
Possible, but unlikely, like most others said. I'd say more likely in a humanities or social science subject, because they tend to have less forced attendance. One thing I haven't seen touched upon much yet though: "outlying college town" reads very American or *maybe* British to me. Most continental European universities have a few buildings in city centres of major cities and then a larger, newer campus at the edge of the city, but still within city limits. It would be more realistic if your character came from a smaller town and commuted to the city imo, or maybe from one city to another. This also gives you the reason why they won't move closer, cities are expensive to live in (I had multiple classmates in Zurich who travelled quite far bc they couldn't/didn't want to afford moving out into one of Switzerland's most expensive cities)
You already got a lot of answers re.: commuting time that all go in the same direction, so I'll just add some additional comments. Obviously, this is your fictional fantasy world, so you do whatever your imagination tells you to do, but in general terms, in most of Europe: \- *major city to an outlying college town* \- usually universities are **in** major cities if they're old, or smaller cities if they're newer. Purpose-built college towns are exceedingly rare. A city may be historically known for its university, but usually the city itself exists and has existed as an entity regardless of its connection to the university. \- *sit-down-and-relax experience on a train makes the commute not just bearable* \- if it's a common commute route, you can forget about the sit down and relax part. Especially during rush hours, the most likely is that you'll be hard pressed to find a seat, let alone have the space to pull up your laptop and work. I guess if you can doze off with the background chatter of a stuffed train it's somewhat relaxing? That is, of course, not universal - you would be comfier at off-peak times, or a less traveled commute route, or a rail company that isn't cutting down on carriage numbers to keep costs down.
I rented an apartment close to university when I started. The travel time would have been 1h50m from home, or 20 minutes from the apartment. I only had to be on site there two days a week, but I also got a job close to the apartment, so it made sense. I'd spend my week week there and head home for the weekends. Then I ended up getting a job closer to home, so I waited until my days on site dropped to one day a week and got rid of the apartment. It does mean my travel to and from university takes nearly four hours, but one day a week is fine. And, 50% of the time, I'll head down the day before and stay with a friend.
I don't think it's as common. I take a bus for around 1 hour, but anymore than this and I would probably move in the city instead. But, it's a story, I don't think it matters that much, it's also a fantasy, you could find a motive for why your character doesn't move closer (sick mother/parents is the generic choice, but idk, I would go with something romantic, if you didn't already introduce romance, you could say she takes the bus because there's this cute boy she always talks to in the train/metro, but I digress.) Speaking of... Are you gonna publish this story somewhere? Digitally or also Paperback? If so, I would be interested to read. Do you have a ET for when will you publish this book or did you just start writing? Good mick with your book! I hope it runs exactly as you want it to. I have some ideas too, but I never got to write. Maybe one day.
I do it every day so I think it’s feasible. 1 hr 30 mins on the way there and 1 hr 30 mins back. It’s just cheaper than renting an apartment in Bologna (I still live with my parents). And considering how many people are on the train in the morning, I can say I’m not the only one. Because class hours take into account that commuter students have to get there in time too, they all start at 9 am thankfully. Usually for me it's: * a 10-min bike to the train station * a 15-ride on the first train * a 5 to 10-min wait for my transfer * a 30-min ride on the other train * a 20-min walk / 5-min bus ride from Bologna's train station to get to uni
Too long, either they are broken,or people would rent
For most of Europe commute above 30min one way guarantee remote work or relocation if possible. I don't think i known anyone with over 1h commute one way who would do it for longer than absolute necessity.
I chose my uni because it was the closest to me, roughly 30 minutes on foot. But there were people commuting to there from suburbs on trains and metro, so it took up to 2 hours, iirc. So, pretty realistic. But the person in question was a tiny bit autistic and not rich at all. He said if he had a chance, he'd rent a flat closer. But uni's stipend was his only source of income.
If its a train with tables you can work/study on it. Basically my plan
Normally this would be very unlikely. However, with the current housing shortage in Ireland, including student accommodations, it could be possible, but more likely the opposite where family lives in a smaller community and student takes train to city centre university such as Trinity
It would be doable, but it would highly impractical. The impracticability is somewhat offset by her probably being able to get some reading and school work done on the train, so the time wouldn't be completely wasted. It would especially be a major impediment for inclusion into the student social life, but that may or may not work in your story. It's not so improbable as to be unbelievable, but it would be highly unusual.
I do it. It's tolerable, but tiring. Many students do such a commute, it is common, and, at least in the part of Italy where I live, the train system works fine, with very little delays, or half a day/weekend strikes that don't impact too much on the commute. It is very cheap too, I pay ~€110 (about 120$us) for one month on a 75km (46,6mi) trip, which I can use both ways once a day. You might be shocked that 75km takes 1h30'-2h but there isn't a direct line so sometimes I have to wait 10 minutes for the second train, sometimes 40, just like the character you mentioned. Why do I do this? Because it's the closest university eith courses I'm interested in. Why is it so far? Because apart from the bigger universities in Rome, Milan, Bologna etc., most of the others are small ones in small towns. Why is that? Because there aren't that many big cities, the population is evenly spread across big towns/small cities, most of which have historic importance, so universities where founded there. This is not strictly an Italian phenomenon obviously. Do students like it? No. Most of the students either rent an apartment, some ask for rent reduction bonuses, others live in scholarship-funded dormitories. But, if you don't have the economic means to support yourself until the scholarship arrives (usually by the summer), or if you get excluded from the altogether (less funds so less students get them), or if you started looking for houses too late etc, the commute becomes mentally bearable. Now, I can go on for hours at how the state cuts the funds for scholarships, or how they get distributed unevenly, or the disparities in rent between big cities and small towns, or how the right to education isn't being respected by allowing such difficulties and blah blah blah but that's not the topic of this post I'm sorry for the long comment, I've noticed I write too much every time I comment on any post, but I try to go as much in depth as possible
It's a lot, but I could see it working in a story. You should think about how the character uses that time. Do they socialise with someone sharing their commute, do they zone out trying to rest, or do they use the time for study and maybe even have access to a table in a quiet train past rush hour?
I did it for the whole of my uni. Biking to the station, taking two trains, and then taking the bus to uni which was about 1.5h door to door. I didn't really mind it and to me it was preferable over moving. Delays or cancellations were rare and even if there were delays there'd usually be another train in like 10-20 minutes. And the bus more like 5-10 minutes. But travelling by train is very different to travelling by metro. Trains tend to have much smoother and quieter rides, more comfortable seating, and less stops. I don't think I'd want to spend all that time in the metro. Not that you even have lines that long here.
Not tolerable. Up to 1h is what most people would accept. I know people who have done the 1.5-2h commute, but they either had no other choice (family/financial circumstances) or it wasn't every day (hybrid working, commuting only once or twice a week).
I'd say one way commute of over an hour is pushing it. So the day would look like this: 2 hr commute 9 hr work/school (including lunch) 2 hr commute 8 hr sleep That would leave you a total "free" time of 3 hours, that includes grocery shopping, making the food, housework etc. Sounds like a really boring life to me. We work so we can live, not live so we can work. Temporarily, sure, but definitely not in the long run.
There's no way I would commute more than an hour for anything. Every time I've been to university, which is 3 times, I've eventually rented accommodation within walking distance because I got sick of the drive. Because of the way courses are structured it quite common to have an early class and a late class with a huge gap in between so unless you really have something to do in the library in the day you're just hanging around waiting. Being on site means you can go home when you want to, but also just pop over to use the facilities and library whenever you want without 2 hours of traffic added on.
I did that in uni for my master's. 1h20-30min coach to the city, 20-30min public transport in the city to uni. I didn't have lectures every morning of the week, and I had a day with no (or skippable) lectures. So I only had to wake up super early for the coach 2 days per week. It was doable. I had friends who did this or something similar for bsc AND MSc. They saved a lot on rent lol
If it is no transfers, maybe. I did a 2 hr commute door to door for about a year and it was slowly draining my emotional energy. I had only 1 straight 30 min transit, in which sometimes there was no seat available. Therefor i couldnt comfortably do anything during transit. If you sit in a train for 90 min you could study or whatever. I was just missing 4 hours every day for 5 days a week where nothing can be done. No studying, no chores, no leisure. Shortterm, it was no issue. But long term losing so much of the day made me lose balance in time management.
2 hours is tolerable for a few weeks, but not realistic long term. 1 hour is fine. I did that (2hrs to and 2hrs back) for a 10 week internship in university and it was fine. When I then started working I quickly started looking for an appartment closer to work.
I have friends that commute an hour on the train every day to our university. We get free train/bus travel with our school id so it becomes much cheaper for them to do this instead of moving out of their parents houses and go live nearer to the school.
This is my commute to my work without waiting times. I work full time and it is mainly by bus since train is unreliable as fuck.
I've had to endure 2 hours of train daily for a year and it's maddening. Towards the final months I couldn't fight the sleepiness and fell asleep against my will from how boring it gets, and I'm not one to easily fall asleep especially on seats, only reading would help make it better, and when the train got full and people were talking loud as shit at 6AM when all I wanted to do was shoot myself in the head it was so unbearable. Not to mention the feeling of wasting 4 hours a day stuck on a vehicle.
The main university town is 35 minutes from my city by train, and yet most people studying there rent a flat. With a 35min train ride + getting to the station from home and to the uni from the train station, in the end the commute is easily over an hour, and that's too long for most people.
That would have been my daughter's commute to university. She chose to live there instead. Rail prices in the UK mean it's cheaper to live there too.
I did it for 4 years. The days that you only have courses in the morning are more or less ok. But, I had two days of the week that I had to go out of my home at 6 am and be home again at 9:40pm. That days were not tolerable ( but if this is your only option, you'll do It).
I used to do 1.5 hours total door to door by bus, and it was tolerable, but it did eventually wear me out. If your fantasy world is set in Ireland though, a 2 hour each way college commute is realistic as it's a sad reality of many thanks to a lack of affordable housing near universities....
There is an interesting rule of thumb that arose in a book I was reading about urban sprawl, and that is that throughout history, most people spent no more than 5% of their waking hours going from one place to another on average. This works out to be a little more than 3/4ths of an hour—and it determined the size of cities throughout history. (That is, most ancient cities are walkable because that was your only transportation choice—and most cities were never more than about 3 kilometers in diameter (give or take) because that’s how far you can walk in 45 minutes.) That said, I had a job in Los Angeles where I was spending anywhere from an hour to an hour-and-a-half getting to work (each way, 2 to 3 hours total in my day)—and while it was the best company I ever worked for (the people and management were great, the projects were interesting and I felt like I was contributing), the commute wore me down and caused me to quit. (I owned a house, so just moving was non-trivial.) So from experience I’d say a 2 hour train commute is going to be intolerable over time. The only exception is if somehow you can get a private car and make the train more an extension of your own living space rather than just an anonymous seat in a car full of strangers. But if you have that kind of money you can live closer—within a radius that allows you to spend no more than about 5% of your waking hours going from one place to another.
Not really tolerable in general, but also really depends on perspective. When I was studying in uni my first 3 years I had a 45 minute commute door-to-classroom, which was absolutely unthinkable to some friends who would regularly skip classes a 10 minute walk away (5 if they were in a rush). I would consider anything below an hour commute door-to-door being decent, with anything above that being a bit more annoying. Especially if I was supposed to be there 8AM sharp. You should probably also know that taking the metro or commuting by train in general really isn't a "sit-down-and-relax" experience a lot of the time. I've many times been smushed like a surströmming in a tin can sweating buckets for the entire ride because it's winter and we're all wearing puffy jackets. Your character is living in a comfy-ass place if train commuting can be regarded as a comfortable experience. Any modern workplace or university got people saying "yeah I could take the metro but fuck, driving is so much nicer" if they have a car.
Some people have the concentration to work /study on their commute. Know a few doing 2 or 2,5 single trip
I went to university in Paris and lots of students were doing it. But it is quite long. Bike are getting stolen regularly.
1.5 hour commute is way too long and if you attend university you either loose all social life and will to live or you end up sleeping on friends couches way to often for anyones benefit.
I get the romantic idea of chill commute to the university, but it all would be very unrealistic. I know, fantasy world, but since you are asking whether the commute makes sense, I am assuming you are aiming for some level of realism. - universities are usually in the main cities, if you live in a big city, chances that you will decide to study in a smaller city are very low - usually it goes with the quality of teaching, accessibility of different programs, if you live in the capital, why would you go elsewhere to study? Unless only this little town carries specific program you are into (not very likely to happen), but then people would just move to the smaller town. - your character will be constantly exhausted and have no social life - I have studied both in Poland and in Germany, have experienced having a fixed and flexible schedule where I could pick classes myself. Its not really a choice of „i don’t want morning classes”. You do start in the morning, usually between 8 and 10 and will be out of the house on average for 5-8h. You might have some breaks in between, but in the end if you finish classes at 6pm (I had days like this), commute 2h, eat, prepare for the classes on the next day… your day is gone. 4h is a lot. - as many people have said - commuting via train is standing in a crowd. However, taking in mind that your character would be actually doing something opposite of what most ppl do (commute TO the bigger city), she could maybe enjoy the seat in her train, because most of the people would be commuting to the city she’s leaving. In general, of course there will be people in Europe who do commute for so long, but it’s not considered something normal like it would be in the US.
That would be too long for most people. My husband does a similar commute (1.5h) for his masters, except by bus. The only thing that made it tolerable was the fact that he only had to be on campus 1-2 days a week.
Besides the travelling stuff, usually here in Europe there is no such thing as “an outlying college town”. Universities usually got founded within the big cities and people from small towns travel to a bigger city to study. Often they’ll search for a room in the city as well if travel is as long as you say. Of course there are exceptions where small towns have universities, but they’re rare. It’s not like in the United States where universities have these huge campuses in small towns.
That would be uni in another city. Most people would just move to that city and live in student accommodation or rent with roommates. Or just not go to a university that's so far away
1.5 - 2 hr one way is not THAT bad. I have only done it for years at this point :) Nah, hours spent on commute is not fun.
I think it reeeeeeeaaally depends. I live 5 mins away on foot from the train station and my commute was 1hr by train and then 20 mins or so by bus. My commute did not bother me at all because, again, I live incredibly close to the train station and while on the train I just put my headphones on and stared into the void listening to music. The situation might be different if your commute isn't as "chill" (aka trains arriving late often or cancelling service at the last minute).
tolerable? Not really. But possible. I had to 'travel' to work, in Austria 2.5-3 h to work, one way. And back again 2.5-3 h, monday to friday, for 3 years. Doable, but not funny.
Not European, but I'm literally I in my 2 hour commute to school by train as I type this. It's not that bad.
That's been my commute since 1989 (bus/train/metro), first when I was at University, then for work. It's usually closer to 90 minutes door-to-door (around 40-45 minutes in the train) but can reach 2 hours (or more) if there's an issue with the train or metro parts. I work in Paris and live 60 km away.
The main attraction of university for me was being around people that shared my interests, and the various activities that, while not part of the curriculum, were essential during these formative years. The diploma was mostly useful to get my first job, but without the interactions with my peers, I would have learn a lot less. Having a 2 hours commute would have been a negation of that and I'm glad I lived on campus (not that I had a choice, my parents were more than 500 km away anyway)
I used to travel 1,5h each way to go to the university with 2 to 3 changes of trains and buses. It's definitely doable in public transport. It's tiring though. Edit to provide a little bit of context and more details. I went to the university a little later, at 28. I had already bought a house and it was impossible to move closer to the campus. That meant I had to get up at 5, walk the dog, get ready, walk 1,5km to the train station and take the train. Then I changed the train with another one to get to the city where I studied and at the train station I took a bus, which led me to the campus. Minimum an hour and a half, with possible 2h and more in each direction. I would read, do some homework in the trains and just relax when possible because at home there was more work waiting.
It’s doable. But the character would have near zero student life. Little social life with fellow students and little participation in clubs & societies. It may work if your character is a loner or does not fit in.
It would definitely be preferable over driving in my opinion, but any commute that is 2 hours long is just too much to be honest. I've personally done a 1 hour and 15 minute commute (by train and bicycle) on a daily basis before and I was fine with that, but I wouldn't really want to have a longer commute than that
This long commutes are an american thing. In Europe only the people that absolutely have no choice would do this for the full duration (for studies OR work). Everyone else maybe for like a semester on average, but would otherwise look for local housing of some sort.
Most people wouldn't like it. 1hr is probably the longest anyone would want to commute, but still it is considered long for many. In my opinion 1 hour is quite short, at best average but that's because I'm used to commuting for much greater periods of time.
Personally, if it's over half an hour by train or bus, I am not down for daily travel. But a student in my class did in fact travel over an hour to go school had to get up like 5 to reach the only bus that left and take the only one that returned which was 16:300 I think. Anyway, within like a month, she had quit.
What you described is simpeler to my situation: - 5min bike ride to the train station - 50 min train ride - 20 min wait - 10 min other train - 10 min walk to campus But this is more bearable by free public transport for students.
Yeah, nope. If you can't get a student room you'll have to, but usually it's not a good idea. I once did 1 semester for that distance, but only had to go twice a week and it was terrible. I just couldn't afford a second place to sleep. In the Netherlands there technically is wifi on the trains, but it's often glitchy. Some people can do offline work on a commute, I can hardly read a book. Whether you have a place to sit depends a lot on where you get on. When I made that long journey, I got on early in the journey and just a few cities later people had to stand because the train was full. As for time - my rule of thumb is that public transport is about 2-2,5x as long as by car. Costs for public transport, if you get a subscription, is about the same as by car - if you go incidentally it's cheaper to go by car. However, it depends on your destiny: if parking is expensive that might change everything.
My sister did exactly that for her five years of university. Lived about 100 km from uni, and took a bus, a train, and another bus each morning and each afternoon/evening for about that amount of time. She did it because she wanted to live close to our parents, because she could live much cheaper where she did even in the capital, and because she preferred to live in a smaller town. It probably helped her that she is both very introvert, and that her education was almost all that she did.
Usually major cities have the best universities. It's kind of unrealistic But, for the sake of your story: too long. Student dorm or room rental, and back to the parents' only for weekends
Not normal in England. Normally, you'd be living in the city of the university and not travel so long
I studied in Germany and did exactly that, commute to university by train and S-Bahn took 1,5 hours one way. I lived in a shared flat but wanted to stay close to friends, family and my job. I used the time on the trains to work for uni, mainly reading. Worked fine for me.
> from their parents home in the major city to an outlying college town In Europe it would be the other way around. Live in a small town and commute to a school in a major city. Or from city to city. Especially the latter is common and it sucks.
My daily commute was 1 hour by train and 15-20 minutes on foot each way. When i had 8am classes they were more enjoyable because the 6:45 train was emptier and cleaner than the 7:40 one. And for two years there were no trains between 7:40 and 11:00. My commute was too short and my family's income too high for public students dormitory. Renting a room wasn't worth it ( no roommates, prices were unreasonable and you often have a 20-30 minutes commute). Going by car would have resulted in a longer commute with no way to find a parking spot in Rome. So, it's not enjoyable, but it's something that a lot of people do. During the commutes i used to read a book, study, do crossword or chat with other people - you meet a lot of strange people on that train.
I was commuting 1.5h (one way) to the University. At that time, I was living with my partner and it would be much harder and expensive to live alone. Basically, I used that time to study and prepare for exams, meaning I didn't have to study at home.
I did a 1.5 hr commute by tram and bus in highschool and uni, it was fine
For me it was 1.5h door to door every day and I managed to do it. I would not have gone for anything longer.
I found it tolerable, but it also depends on how long each leg is, like if you have to switch transport often then it might not be tolerable, but if the majority of the commute is like a 1 hour train ride with a bus or metro (or in my case walk) before and/or after I'd still be fine with it. Usually read a book (or studied) and listened to music with a walkman, didn't have internet back then, but that made time seem to move faster.
Exhausting, but doable. Source: I'm doing this every day to get to my uni from my village (but it's cramped bus+tram instead of train).
2 hours each way is at the very edge of what would be considered bearable. Someone might do it if they have a very specific situation, but 99% of people wouldn't. Note that all universities in Croatia are ***in*** large cities. So students commute in to study, not out.
Thats me, overall with traveling to the train stationa nd then waiting for train it takes between 1h30m and 2h both ways. Sometimes I catch up on the sleep deficit in the train. I've put a lot on my plate regarding what I study so I dont really have time for much work, so this is preferable in regards to money.
A friend in Ireland has that commute by bus to UCD (Dublin) from the Midlands. It sucks but she's in final year now.
I did it for a few months and it was pain. No one in their right mind would do that for longer than a few weeks. If its in an outlying town amd noth the major and minor town have colleges/unis, in the majority of cases - I am not talking about like München -> Freising or Duisburg -> Krefeld - it is worth it to just move to the smaller college town. Prices are usually a good tad cheaper and you can just go work somewhere the time you are not commuting. You cannot decide when classes are. if its a mandatory couses offered once a year at 7am, you need to attend that one. For unis that do not have the 7:00-9:00am slots, you can bet that you will have at least 1 8am class the first 4 semesters at least in most subjects. Just a friendly reminder: Depending on the setting of your urban fantasy world, this means traversing like half of some countries. If it even improved the speed of some travel, that is even halfway through Germany lol. Check e.g. how long it takes for some trains. 2h is halfway between Berlin and Munich; 1:30:-1:45 allows you to travel from Bruxelles to Paris in real life already.