In Defence of the Bubble

When I told my friends from home that I was going to university in a tiny Scottish town, their reactions ranged from disbelief to mild horror. Why would anyone, they asked, choose to spend three years trapped in a bubble where daylight barely breaks through the clouds and the temperature never reaches double digits?

To them, St Andrews sounded less like a university and more like a remote outpost, picturesque, maybe, but surely dull. The most common concern was nightlife: “What do you even do there?” they asked, as if there weren’t enough people to fill a pub, let alone a club.

Yet that bleak image of life on the east coast of Scotland did little to deter me. If anything, it has made me realise how misplaced the stigma against small universities really is. St Andrews’ size isn’t its flaw, but rather, it is what makes it such an enjoyable place to be.

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I have friends at Nottingham, Manchester, and London who seem to spend more time in Ubers than at university. Their flats are miles apart, often an hour from campus. A “quick catch-up” over coffee becomes a half-day expedition. Sure, they have their choice of fifteen nightclubs on a night out, and they’d almost certainly turn their noses up at 601 or the Vic, but little do they know the advantages of studying somewhere small.

Here, everything and everyone is within walking distance. With just 8,000 undergraduates, three main streets, and enough pubs to rival the number of flats, St Andrews is compact in the best way. I can walk to lectures, the library, the beach, and most of my friends’ houses in under ten minutes, which is a luxury my city friends can only dream of.

This closeness extends beyond geography. St Andrews is the kind of place where everyone seems to know everyone. Admittedly, this means everyones business spreads fast, but it also creates a genuine sense of community. You’re rarely anonymous here; there’s always someone to bump into on Market Street, someone waving from across North Street, or a friend to share a drink with at the Central.

The best example of this community is the academic family system, a tradition that confuses almost everyone outside of St Andrews. When I tried to explain Raisin Weekend to my friends from home, they didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed. The idea of an entire university taking part in a chaotic two-day event of costumes, foam fights, and a drunken sea dip was completely alien to them.

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But that’s exactly what makes it special. Academic families connect students across years and subjects, and for many first years, it’s an instant way to feel part of something. In those first few daunting weeks, it turns the unfamiliar into the familiar remarkably quickly.

Of course, living in a small town has its quirks. My biggest qualm may have to be the lack of good shopping places other than H&M, which has resulted in me spending far too much money on delivery costs and returns, but I would say that’s a small price to pay for the benefits we get from this town.

The “Bubble,” as everyone calls it, can sound like an insult, but it’s really a compliment. It’s true that St Andrews can feel slightly removed from the rest of the world, but that distance allows for a kind of closeness that’s hard to find elsewhere.

My friends in big cities have endless options for clubs, cafés, and people, but with that choice comes distance. Their world is wider, but their connections are scattered. Ours are concentrated within three cobbled streets and a couple of beaches.

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St Andrews may be small, but that’s exactly what gives it character. It’s a place where you recognise faces every day, where everything you need is right on our doorstep, and where you truly feel apart of the community.

And so, if the January blues and freezing weather has made returning to St Andrews feel like the last thing you want to do, remember that the Bubble isn’t something to escape it’s something to enjoy while it lasts.