Interview P04 | SYNTHETIC transcript for training | Topic: hybrid working and campus
Participant: undergraduate, second year, built environment (pseudonym P04) | INT = interviewer

INT: Can you tell me a bit about how you get to campus?
P04: I live at home with my parents to save on rent, so I get the bus in. It's
     an hour each way, and on a wet Monday it can be longer.
INT: How often do you come in?
P04: Whenever I've got something timetabled, so four days most weeks. Some of
     my modules record the lectures, though, so if it's just a lecture and
     nothing else, I'll watch it at home instead.
INT: How do you decide?
P04: It's maths, really. Is it worth two hours on the bus for one hour of
     lecture? If there's a seminar or a studio session, yes. If it's a one
     o'clock lecture on its own, probably not.
INT: What's a campus day like for you?
P04: A lot of waiting around. I might have a nine o'clock and then nothing until
     three. I can't go home in between, so I need somewhere to sit and work.
INT: Is there somewhere?
P04: Not enough. The library fills up by ten. The social spaces are loud, and
     you feel like you're in the way if you're not buying anything. I've done
     whole assignments on the floor of a corridor with my laptop on my knees.
INT: And the days you study at home?
P04: They're easier but I miss stuff. People make friends in the gaps between
     lectures, and I'm not there for the gaps. Most of my course mates live near
     campus, so they all go to the pub or whatever after, and I'm on the bus.
INT: Do you feel part of the course community?
P04: Sort of. On the edge of it. Group projects help, because you have to meet
     up. But people arrange things in person and I hear about it later.
INT: What would make coming in easier?
P04: Cheaper buses for students, for a start. And if timetables put things
     together, so you had a full day rather than one thing at nine and one at
     four. Plus proper study spaces you can book, with plugs.
INT: Plugs?
P04: Plugs are a big thing. My laptop battery is old. If I can't find a plug by
     lunchtime, my day is basically over.
INT: That's a useful detail. Anything about the recorded lectures?
P04: Recordings are brilliant. They're the reason I haven't dropped a module.
     But I think some people use them as a reason never to come in, and then
     seminars are half empty, which is a bit depressing for the rest of us.
INT: Anything else you'd like to add?
P04: Just that commuter students exist. A lot of the advice we get assumes you
     live five minutes away.
INT: Thank you.

[End of interview]
