UNIVERSITY WAS NOT THE BEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE

Martha Haziran 30, 2021

For loads of people (friends and family included), university is the most exciting and rewarding time in someone’s life. You learn who you really are, test your independence, teach yourself to cook, party like a nutter and make the friends you’ll keep forever. You’re told to look forward to it, and you do. I stressed out about my exam results, hoping they’d be good enough to get me into the university I wanted. The application process was so fun and daunting. Emails about courses and open days were flooding into my Gmail and I was so excited to move out into a big city and start my new life as a student.

But as I sit here typing this blog post, just four months after graduating with First Class Honours in Journalism, I’m looking back and feeling a bit disappointed with the whole university experience…

And before I go any further, I don’t want to come across like an ungrateful little sod. I’m incredibly lucky and grateful to have had the support from both of my parents throughout the three years that I was studying (both emotionally and financially). I know that some people aren’t in a position to be able to go to university, whether it be because of money or family commitments, and I don’t want to come across like I’m shitting on the whole idea of going to uni, because I’m not. I’m incredibly proud of myself for going, sticking with it and achieving the degree that I have. But I can’t help wanting to express exactly why I found it less-than-amazing and why I kinda disagree with the idea that university is so idealistic and fantastic.

Before I even applied for university in the UK, I took two years out. The first year I moved back home, I’d only just missed the application deadline, and was a little bit miffed about that. I’d enrolled at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia after I’d finished school there, but quit after a week (when I realised it was all wrong to stay in Oz) and moved back home. I was itching to get the university-ball rolling, but got a job in a little café in Devon where I lived with my Dad. Later that year, I decided to get a job in a pub for more hours and to make some new friends. I’d not lived in Devon since I was about eleven years old, so most of my school friends were elsewhere (or had spawned several offspring that I didn’t want to hang around with). I got my pub job and, through working there, got in with an amazing group of people who I’m still friends with today. Then, instead of applying for university the following year, I thought I’d go off travelling for a bit before committing to my education again. But, in true Jaz-fashion, I never went off travelling and ended up working in the pub throughout the whole second year that I was back.

Then I applied for 2015/16 enrolment with the continued encouragement and support from my family. The thing is, I was brought up ‘knowing’ I’d go to university, and I’m sure a lot of you will be able to relate to this. When I was younger, even at Primary School, my parents would say things like: “You need to do your homework so you can get into university!”, or “When you’re at university you’ll be so good at writing”. And whatever they said was always said in an encouraging and motivational way, but it just meant that I never even considered not going to university. I ‘knew’ that I was to finish school, get good exam results, and go to university. I never even considered an alternative like an apprenticeship or going straight into full-time work. To consider that would have felt like such a let-down to my parents, who always wanted (what they obviously thought was) the best for me.

So I got into the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, and was set to move there in September 2015. In the meantime, a very attractive ginger boy decided to ask me to be his girlfriend. Fabulous. Except he’d just accepted his offer from a university in London, where he was based. Unfabulous. Typical uni courses last three years, meaning our relationship was pretty much strained from the get-go, what with all the stuff you hear about relationships being doomed to fail during Fresher’s Week and all that business. But, besides that, I felt a little bit too old to be revelling in all the parties, drinking games and club nights that were being promoted during first year. I was already twenty years old; I’d already had a few years of drinking and partying under my belt, and I felt a bit weird hanging around with eighteen year olds who had literally just had the apron strings cut. There were so many nights out during my first year that I was invited to, but I honestly just didn’t fancy it. I stayed in and blogged, filmed YouTube videos, and caught the National Express to London to visit Chris when I could.

It was a bit of a lonely first year. Probably because I felt like I never really clicked with anyone. But then again, I never really clicked with anyone after I moved universities from Bristol to London to be with Chris. When the end of our first year rolled around, we had to decide which one of us was going to move to the other, and we figured I’d come to London. I always wanted to live in London, and because I was studying Journalism, the capital seemed like a logical step for me. But even after I arrived in London, I struggled with friends at uni. I enjoyed spending time with a couple of people on my course (you know who you are and I’m sorry I’m so shit at keeping in touch), but I honestly thought that the majority of people on my course were insufferable. In fact, I actively fell out with one idiot who slagged me off in an email he accidentally sent to the whole year. I know you can’t expect to get on with everyone in this life, but Jeeeesus Christ it would have been nice not to be surrounded by people who were the complete opposite of ‘my kinda people’.

But having said that, after I moved to the University of East London (UEL), that’s when I really started to excel at the course itself. People always say that a social life is distracting from school, but luckily for me, my social life was non-existent. I’d been getting 2:2s and 2:1s in Bristol, but now almost every piece of my work was getting 1:1 gradings. And it was so nice to have moved in with Chris after a year and a half of being in a relationship, but only seeing each other once every few weeks because of our schedule clashes. Chris and I getting our own flat, and not having to live in halls anymore (don’t get me started on halls today; THAT’S a separate blog post) probably really comforted me and allowed me to focus more on essays and coursework. I’d always felt a bit transient up until this point in my life; this was the first time I’d moved house/around the country and it had been completely MY decision, so I really felt settled into my studying and home life.

Then, as my third year of university got into swing, I came to the sad realisation that the more I learned about journalism (the course I’d spent two and a half years studying already), the less I wanted to go into it. And that isn’t anybody’s fault. I just realised more and more as the course went on that I didn’t want to be airlifted into warzones, or doorstep grieving people with missing relatives, or report on the latest celebrity gossip, or c o n s t a n t l y have to talk or write about politics, sports, the economy, the Royal Family, the environment or whatever other doom and gloom is projected into our homes from the news on a daily basis. I’m not saying that’s all that Journalism is, but that certainly seemed to be what the course was teaching us students to get into. It got to the point where I was barely bothering to go in at all, until my Dad started holding me responsible. It seems ridiculously entitled to say now, but he offered to help me with some money towards a Eurotrip after I graduated, as long as I took a picture of myself arriving at uni every morning.

Here is just a small sample of some of the incredibly flattering 8am shots I sent to my father to prove I was actually on campus…

And when the last couple of months came around, I got into the rhythm of it. I was producing good coursework, I was attending every day. I had a really good relationship with my course tutors and was receiving such encouraging feedback and they told me their positive predictions for my final grade. I was keeping up to date with all my final deadlines, and I can honestly say that I now look back on the last six weeks of university as one of the best times of my life. I don’t know if it’s because I loved the pressure of a huge deadline every week, or waking up every morning with a clear purpose, or even just counting down the days until I was finished with the course forever. But, I know for sure that I absolutely adored those last few weeks.

And then, just like that, I was finished. I almost couldn’t believe it. And I almost still can’t. I graduated on the 19th of July 2018, and two days later I’d set off for my travels around Europe, which was undoubtedly the best five weeks of my entire life, so far. But my final weeks at university and graduation never had a chance to sink in until Chris and I returned to ‘real-life’ at the end of August. I was finished. Done. That. Was. It. So I started thinking “what’s next?”, and that’s pretty much still where I am. I sit here, in my pyjamas, eating ham out of the packet with Judge Judy on TV. I’m working part time hours every week in the pub down the road. I’m not guaranteed a professional job in my field, and owe nearly £50k.

I don’t mean to sound so incredibly jaded, and I am by n o m e a n s trying to put you off going to university, or take anything away from any university experience you may have had and enjoyed. But I so disagree with the hype surrounding university, whether it be from schools, family or expectations we’ve put onto ourselves. I don’t doubt that people meet their best friends ever whilst at uni, or have unforgettable shenanigans, or whatever. But I can’t help wondering now whether it was the right thing for me. I know, that’s rich considering I’ve got my degree. I just wish I’d even considered a different option. Not that things may have panned out any differently.

With all that horrible negative shit being said, I really am proud that I stuck it out and finished it. And although I very much feel like, in the end, I did it for my parents rather than for myself, I’m also incredibly proud of my First Class grade, which I WILL be printing in massive word-art font at the top of my CV when I eventually feel ready to start applying for ‘proper grown up’ jobs. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment and achievement, regardless of how I feel towards the experience as a whole. And that’s alright with me.