MOVING ON: LIFE AFTER UNI
I never wanted to go to university. In fact up until my last year at College I was smugly adamant that it was the last thing I would do. But as I near the end of my second year, the end is quickly approaching and reflection is something I can’t avoid.
My reason for going to Uni was equal parts family pressure and the unwillingness to transition into adulthood. For me, with lots of goals and absolutely no idea how to achieve them, university was a great way of finding myself (a.k.a wasting time) and prolonging the inevitable 9 till 5.
I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as the student type although neither would any of the other students I know. It’s actually comforting to know that you’re not the only one weighing the consequences of leaving now, or after two years still forgetting to do readings or keep an eye on deadlines. And whatever you’re thinking or feeling, chances are, everyone else is feeling the exact same.
My entire student life has pretty much consisted of breakdowns, poor attempts at budgeting and helping my friends do work that even I’m not sure I really understand.
University is a lot like, to use a Duncan Macmillan quote completely out of context, someone ‘hit me in the face and then asked me a maths question’. But it’s funny everything seems so much harder when it’s happening. It is only through hindsight that you can see everything for what it was, good or bad. In the future I may look back at my uni years fondly, just as I did for my GCSE’s, laughing, you really thought this was as tough as life could get? It’s a depressing assessment but not an entirely unrealistic one.
If I could go back and do it again, would I? At some moments, when I look at my friends or I’m on a night out with my housemates I think without a doubt, yes, I would. And then at other times when I think of the nine hour stints in the library, the mountain of deadlines and the thousands of pounds worth of debt I’m accumulating, I think;
no, no, no and fuck no!
When starting to make choices for the final year of study, you realise that graduation isn’t very far away at all and soon you’ll have to make the really big decisions which almost make all the essays seem like a walk in the park.
If my article appears negative I do apologise and must disclaim that it’s because I am currently swimming against a tide of deadlines which somewhat alters my usual good temperament. Realistically, University has probably been one of the wisest decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
But at this point in time it is too soon to be able to say honestly whether I will or will not miss university come the end of next year. Without a doubt I will be scared and unsure and sad to leave the friends I have made, and if I pass with anything over a 2:2 there will certainly be no regrets on my part! But I suspect relief will be my biggest emotion. And hey, if I really miss learning that much I can stay on and do my masters…
Yeeeah right.
