Please forgive the lack of creativity in the title, but
trust me, I have an excuse lined up.
I’m typing this at 1pm, having only just woke up, and with a
ludicrous headache for seemingly no apparent reason. And so far, I can only
conjure up a single comment on how student life has been for me so far: It’s
just like everyone says it is.
I’d usually go against stereotypes in any form, but when it
comes to being a student, I’ve remembered that they do indeed exist for a
reason. If you do decide to go to uni, you’ll certainly learn how to budget on
the fly, you’ll meet a load of different people, and you’ll certainly drink
enough for a lifetime or two over the course of your three years here.
So in a haphazard, disorganised manner, here are a few
pointers/hints/comments on what uni has been like, (at least for me) so far.
Procrastination is a love/hate relationship:
I’m in my fifth week of lectures and seminars now, and I
hate to admit it but every time the group is told to read and make notes on a
certain play or poem, I’ve gone and left it until the morning of said class. Even for me, this is some new kind of evolved
laziness.
You know that you should do your reading and research, but
it’d just be very rude and unsociable not to go out tonight. So in the near future,
I can quite easily see myself relying even more on the likes of websites such
as SparkNotes and Wikipedia.
For me, a quick glance at my timetable shows me that I’ve
got loads of free time at university, apart from the occasional shift at work,
but its absurdly easy how quickly said spare time can simply vanish. One minute
you’re slowly losing yourself in the endless void of the internet, but next
thing you know, its half-past 3 in the morning, and you’ve got to make notes on
Great Expectations.
You’ll some things on the fly. And it’s not a bad thing:
One of the weirdest experiences of my student life so far has
been the simple act of shopping. Not shopping to treat yourself, I mean the
Sunday standard food shop. While walking around the local Morrisons, I spent a
good 10 minutes wondering what to buy; what I needed, what I fancied, and what
I could actually afford. But then I merely got a variety of Pepsi Max, frozen
chips and chicken steaks for 8 quid and went on my merry way.
The sudden realisation that you’ve become an adult is
quickly met with the need to budget how much you can spend on vodka this week, and
that mini-crisis of looming responsibility disappears instantly.
But, basic budgeting and shopping are nothing compared to
looking for next year’s accommodation. It needs to be done unfortunately, and
little can compare to the dread of reading and trying to understand a 20-page
contract of a house, while remaining realistic among five other optimistic,
excited flatmates who want to put their deposits down straight away.
Would you ever learn about real-life skills like these
unless you were thrown in at the deep end? Possibly, (probably) not.
You’ll learn to be social, at least a bit:
As long
as you can remember everyone’s names, you’ll be fine; just get the alcohol
going and go out as much as possible in your first week. Everyone’s in the same
boat, as much as that phrase gets excessively used.
Even if you are inclined to dislike
people, as long as you try for a week or so, you’ll make friends whether they
be from in or outside your apartment. Looking at my flatmates, you’d swear that
they switch places in their rooms; one minute we’re all quiet and minding our
own business, the next we’re out being the loud, obnoxious and shameless
students which society portrays us as.
Hopefully that doesn’t put you
off of uni, and maybe even eases some of your uncertainties regarding the new,
daunting experience of higher education. The social side of uni was one of the
biggest worries for me, and probably affects a lot of other potential students.
Regardless of how uni unfolds for you, it’s completely dependent on how much
effort you put in. If you go around with no intention of making friends, then
chances are that’ll unfortunately come true for you. However, if you join a
society or two, go out to places you wouldn’t normally, and spend a bit of your
budget on getting to know others over a drink, you’ll be absolutely fine.
Uni is simply what you make of
it.
