What It Feels Like Going To Uni If You’re Working Class
Someone told me the other day that trying to define what the terms ‘middle class’ and ‘working class’ mean is the most categorically middle class, privileged thing you can do. I think it’s croquet, but that’s a close second.
Issues of class are tricky territory, and talking about them brings countless problems: of misunderstanding, erasure, tone policing, patronisation, privilege competition and all those really bleak things that make people shy away from subjects and silence their own experience. As working class people, we are constantly talked about but never given the privilege of being platformed in our own right.
As a working class queer person, I have spent a lot of time amplifying conversations about my sexuality and gender identity, and equal amounts of time hushing up my working class background, silencing it and avoiding talking about it, terrified that if people really knew they would start to write narratives for me. Narratives such as the patronising ‘Boy done good’, the offensive ‘Aren’t you glad you escaped?’ or just simple changes in the way people treat you, where they think it’s their duty to educate you and tell you how to behave, and that you, as a working class person, have nothing of note to share.
For many people like me who come from working class backgrounds, the first time you experience the mind-blowing class divide is at university. The differences between you and your more culturally and financially wealthy peers never feels quite so expansive as in the tiny bubble of lectures, societies, libraries and canteens of university, where you’re introduced to people you would never have clapped eyes on had you not left your regional hometown.
While these meetings are incredibly formative, the experience of changing your behaviour and silencing your background for working class kids at university seems fairly ubiquitous. With rising fees and crippling debt, as well as a range of subjects which, for many, appear to have no links to getting a job, going to university is still a far more middle and upper class — rather than working class — reality.
When I reached out for stories about what the experience of being working class feels like at university, people candidly shared experiences which brought up interesting, heartbreaking matches throughout. While many institutions offer some aid for working class folk, it’s clear that these institutions simply don’t know how to deal with our needs: both financial and emotional. Everyone I spoke with told me how they silenced themselves when they got to university, and what we all agreed on was that we wished we could have been more in your face and proud of where we came from during those years. So if you’re going to uni this term, try to speak about your background proudly and ask for help where needed. There’s nothing shameful about being working class; it’s just a shame that we so often try to hide it.
Olivia, Cambridge, Social Anthropology
Class had a significant impact on my university experience. I’m from a working class background, raised by a long-term unemployed single parent, so I wasn’t exactly expecting to see people like me at Cambridge. To get by, I talked about my background as little as possible. Something as basic as ‘What do your parents do?’ felt like the most difficult question in the world to answer — I lied, all the time, even with friends, and felt ashamed that I was distancing myself from my background. I resented having to do it, but I did it anyway.
We had to sell our car to pay the £300 deposit to get me there. But it wasn’t just wealth that had an impact — though yes, money was incredibly important. It was the vernacular and experience of middle class-ness that I didn’t have. It felt like a constant humiliation in small chunks to realise just how different and clueless I was, and not just in mixers where you’re expected to have the societal know-how to rub shoulders in the right way. It was in classes, where I’d mispronounce a word and be corrected, because I’d never talked about any of these things out loud before, I’d just read them. Or where I was expected to have combative dialogue and to defend my ideas — something I’d learned to subdue over years and couldn’t unlearn in three years of my degree because being mouthy and smart at the same time wasn’t valued in any environment I’d known before.
It also added layers of frustration and fatigue to some friendships — I had a lot of passionate, political friends who would intellectualise what it was to be poor. I’d never heard more discussions of what it was to be poor or to lack resources than from my middle class friends. I was trying so hard to remove class from conversations, to hide my own, and people seemed to cloak themselves with the affectation of being working class or didn’t consider their own class a privilege entirely.
Holly, Warwick, Sociology
I got ‘sponsored’ to study at Warwick. I didn’t think I’d go to uni; no one in my family had and it was something that felt very expensive and alien. My parents were divorced and earning shit money, I only went to sixth form because of EMA [Education Maintenance Allowance]. My sociology teacher was a young, working class Indian woman who was sick of racism and sexism and bullshit — she made me promise that I’d do my UCAS and apply because I was ‘good enough and should be there’. I had no expectation of getting in.
When I got there, the differences were immediately obvious. People laughed at or commented on my estuary accent: “What I don’t understand about you, Holly, is that you’re obviously really intelligent but then you open your mouth and sound like a chav.”
People commented on the food I ate, making throwing up noises when I made the food Mum used to make. I was told it was racist to not know what hummus was, by a white cis man. But overwhelmingly it was seeing the amount of money people spent — I felt like I was at primary school again, with my market trainers and trackie bottoms for PE.
I think I spent a good amount of time being angry, ranting about the other students to the few friends I had. They were mostly lefties, and I think some of them were thrilled to have a ‘real life’ working class person as their friend. Owen Jones wrote Chavs, and people were queuing to tell me to read it because it would resonate with me. Would it fuck. I think that was the weirdest thing, hearing people talk about poverty and employment issues and housing with authority where they had no experience.
But I think the hardest bit was after graduation. There was that summer where everyone changed their Facebook status to ‘fun employed’ and we’d all moan on Skype about how shit the economy was. But then people started getting unpaid internships, staying with their parents. People got NGO entry jobs. People’s parents ‘put in a word’. And suddenly I was the last one. I was signing on and skint and depressed. I tried to kill myself. I felt like there was this unattainable life. My family started making comments, asking what was the point? My younger family members didn’t apply to uni because “look at Holly”.
Liam, Kingston, Law
Apart from obviously everyone thinking you were a ‘chav’, people weren’t all too judgmental. But it was obvious I had less money than everyone else.
I do remember one time I went to the uni’s funding facility because if you were on a low income you were entitled to grants and bursaries but, because I was still assessed under my dad’s income, I wasn’t entitled. When I explained my home life situation — that ever since my mum passed he wasn’t there and lived elsewhere and that I was raised by my sister — they were less than sympathetic, and basically asked for proof: social services reports, etc. But I didn’t have them because I’d never told anyone about that situation back home.
I remember being the only one working, and in my final year I had to get a full-time job. My second university for my postgrad was similar too. I went to the University of Law in Moorgate, and there were literally sons and daughters of diplomats and heads of corporations sat opposite me. I felt ‘poor’ among my peers there. I asked a teacher for help once, and they simply said, “Yes, well, our students don’t really have to work.”
Lu, Oxford, Fine Art
I was part sponsored by an old white dude who used to be the city editor of the Daily Mail, and is now the president of Euro money. He’s a millionaire. I wasn’t aware of this scholarship/ sponsorship setup until I received a letter at uni. Every year I was invited to a drinks reception and a formal long table dinner, and had to hide my Essex accent while trying to converse with this couple in order for them to feel good about investing in me.
His wife would ask me if I painted, and much to her disappointment I said “no”. There was something that made me feel uncomfortable about having to be paraded around as one of the poor ones, coming to meet my sponsors and be very grateful that they helped with the insane fees I had to pay. There were a lot of these networking events and I had to learn really quickly how to navigate them. At Oxford so many things happened that wouldn’t have at home. I was generally being served better food (three courses!) at college, and felt very awkward about the butler service. To get by, you basically have to give in and use proper middle class private school kid talk — ‘vacs’ is now your holidays, ‘hacks’, ‘battels’, ‘bops’ are these lame parties in colleges that were seen as term highlights. We had ‘scouts’ who would clean our toilets and make our beds/ empty bins/ hoover (once a week in our college), which made me think that it was just so the posh kids feel like they’re at home and don’t have to grow up yet.
There was so much class difference. The feminist circles were where I found my home. But still they would tend to just be totally unaware about how some of the activities or the language or concepts were not working class-friendly. Part of me became a bit irked by the dismissal of working class men (I’ll never defend their misogyny but I feel like you have to understand that they are also victims of a capitalist structure and toxic masculinity) and acceptance of your posh boy mates who claim they’re feminists then go and mansplain feminism to you.
Johan, Westminster, Criminology
I am the first person from my family to go to university. During my A-levels everything had to be practical — studying anything creative was a complete no, so I did business, English and media and failed them all. I went back to college when I turned 21 as I became interested in social sciences and wanted to be involved in social research. While my family are extremely proud of me, in terms of a support network of people who could help me through academically and financially, it hasn’t been easy. When I made the decision to go back into education, there were a lot of questions about its financial worth: what job would I get after and how would it directly benefit my life? The fact that university could be a place to study and learn, and I wasn’t as bothered about how it would better me financially also raised a lot of questions. I think the expectation to learn a trade/ do something for the money and not for the enjoyment is more prevalent in working class families. My dad is fucking great but I’m not looking to follow him into the car paint-spraying sector.
Although Westminster University is quite working class in demographic compared to other London universities, you do get a lot of wealthy students who can pay for additional help/ buy materials/ not have to work two jobs to pay London rent. I had to work two jobs for the majority of my studies, while other people went on summer holidays.
James, Nottingham, Classics
I was the only comprehensive student on my course to study classics. My experiences were not of prep school Latin and Greek. The emphasis seemed to be on an old boys’ club education: jokes about Horace and school houses. It was a struggle not only in terms of the academic culture being an elitist one, especially for classicists, but also because it wasn’t supported by the Indian side of my family (I’m mixed race) who came here as refugees from Kenya, and for whom the only goal of university was to become a doctor, lawyer or accountant; anything that could help support the family later. I was out of place among my peers, and at home I was perverse for pursuing something without an obvious career at the end. I was due to study law beforehand and had a place, but decided to change without telling anyone. I definitely feel that it made me feel detached from the rest of the year and for the first year I disengaged and didn’t go to class, preferring to study alone. I got the grades but mostly stuck with friends from halls rather than any course mates, to prevent these feelings of isolation.
Rosie, Westminster, Fashion Design
Coming from a working class area, a working class school and having working class friends, I was kind of in a bubble growing up. When I first got to uni, I found myself trying to act more middle class — you just want to fit in. But eventually I stopped that and made up for it by being even more myself than before.
Money was probably the biggest thing holding me back. Especially on my internship year because some people had the luxury of going to do really cool unpaid internships but I just couldn’t afford it. Also my final collection was so much cheaper than everyone else’s, but I’m glad it was, it wouldn’t have been right if it wasn’t.
I think the only thing to do is be yourself. Don’t try and hide where you’re from or tone down who you are to please other people because at the end of the day, they’ll be trying to look and speak and act poor ’cause it’s trendy and will think you’re so cool and authentic anyway. Also don’t let the fact you don’t have a safety net of money stop you from keeping on. That’s what overdrafts and maximum student loan is for!
Originally published at https://www.refinery29.com.
