For me, university wasn't the best years of my life. I know they're supposed to be, and for most people they are, but if that was true then my life would be rather sad. Like in my early teens, I experienced bad friendships, I questioned what I was doing with my life and had academic stresses. It definitely wasn't the best time of my life but I don't look back on it with bad feelings. It's a time that I wouldn't go back to but I'm glad I went through it. It's in the past and I'm a lot stronger because of what happened. There's a lot that happened and I can't cover all 3 years in this post but I will summarise it and there are definitely things I will cover and write in more detail in later posts; in the trending topics of love, betrayal, happiness, companionship and finding myself.
I had a run of bad luck at the start. First I was rejected from my first choice. I fell short on my grades and was massively disappointed. My sister opened and read my results to me. My History grade was pulled down by one really bad grade. I requested for a remark but nothing changed. I couldn't understand how it turned out like that. I still don't.
Although I didn't mange to get the grades that I hoped for, I wasn't deterred from working my hardest and trying to get the best university grades that I could possibly achieve. But I was about to learn that the jump from GCSEs to A Level was not the only big jump I was going to find; adapting from A Levels to University was also difficult, but in a different way. Whilst A Levels were a lot harder than GCSEs in terms of difficulty level, university was hard because it required a completely different technique and approach to studying. The structure and style from my A Level work were completely different to what was expected at university. This may seem really obvious, but adjusting quickly to a whole new work style is really difficult and hard to do. Especially when you've had 14 years of being drilled to write in a certain way to then be told it's wrong and you must do a different structure, write in a different style, learn to reference everything properly and consistently in order to get good grades. Luckily, my nightmare during A Levels helped me to adjust. I was still upset by my drop in grades but it was a familiar feeling. I kept working hard, kept studying and visited my lecturers for adivce and feedback after every assignment.
My grades were OK but I couldn't help but compare myself to my friends. All of my friends are really clever and academic. They were all getting really good grades and seemed to pick things up so much more easily and quickly than I could. I envied and admired them. I really wish I could be like them. Struggling to adjust to each lecturer and each module was hard. I did well in the end, but it was a struggle. There was a lot of hours studying, staying up, living in the library and researching. I love(d) my course and I enjoy learning. But all of this work definitely made me question why I was doing it; what was I aiming for? I questioned if I still wanted to be a teacher. After struggling through education did I really want to stay in the education sector? I definitely had a lot of doubts.
In addition to these problems, I found out that there was a problem with my university accommodation. In England, I'm not sure about other countries, first year university students are guaranteed accommodation; however, because of a mix-up I had no accommodation. Suddenly choosing a university that none of my friends were going to didn't seem like such a bright idea.
In hindsight, it wasn't that bad. The university did pay for me to stay in a hotel and I wasn't the only student without accommodation. The problem was, I was in a new city with no friends and no arrangement was ever made to meet the other students. I kept getting different contradictory information; "We will pay for your hotel for two weeks." "No we will only pay for one week then you're on your own." "It's two weeks.", "We'll do all we can to help you find accommodation and get settled into student life." But I was never contacted ... This was my first time away from home. It was rather daunting and overwhelming to say the least.
I cried everyday for the first 5 days. I was in a new city with no friends. I could hear and see groups of students going out for Freshers Week but I didn't know who they were or where they were going. I felt unbelievably isolated and lonely. I turned into a complete blubbering wreck. Everyday I convinced myself it'll be better and I would go out and try to be pro-active and productive. I went exploring the city, I went food shopping to try to find things I could eat or make in my hotel and tried to find people to be friends with. The latter sounds rather pathetic. But what else could I do? And what's worse is that every night it always ended up with me alone, crying in the hotel room.
So of course I wanted to make friends ASAP. Maybe I was a bit hasty. But like I've said before, you're going to make bad friends and it's hard to avoid it. The most important thing is to realise this and to recognise which are bad friends so that you can save yourself from future trouble, heartache and betrayal. I really do believe that everyone deserves to be happy. So if these people are causing you pain or unhappiness, you deserve better and they're not worth your time. They might not be bad people, maybe you're just incompatible. Either way, life's too short to spend your hours with people you don't like or makes you unhappy. This is something I've learnt. At university I had some bad friendships and some good ones. You can only know if they're good or bad with time. Bad friendships are inevitable, as are good ones.
I took initiative and used my forward, friendly personality to make as many new friends as possible. I had facebook friended another student on my course just before coming to university via a university facebook group. And I made a special effort to talk to as many people on my course as possible. I then found some friends on a tour around the city, and some students I noticed in the hotel. I now had a few groups of friends on my course and other courses, and arranged to live with the students from the hotel. Admittedly, I had little choice but to live with them.
Then I arranged to live with my friends for the second year of university. Despite a year long friendship, where we were there for each other, I found out just what our friendship was really worth; nothing. I met them at the start of university when I had no place to live, and still they left me high and dry with no place to live once again.
I can't say I was awfully fond of being homeless again, but luckily I found out my coursemate (the one I first met on facebook) was living in the same area of the city. This was probably the best thing that happened during university. It was because of this that I regained sanity. I became best and really good friends with her, her housemates and other friends. Their house became my sanctuary when I needed to get away from my house or just wanted to hang out with people. We went out together regularly and created amazing memories together.
My 3 years at university gave me the push that I needed to make me do things independently. I had no choice but to grow up and learn to sort out my life. It gave me the situations to grow and develop as a person. Along with my early teens, it was a key defining moment for me as a person. My childhood gave me a foundation, my early teens tested me, and my late teens in university was when I truly developed and shaped as a person.
Although I hate not knowing what's the next step or not having something to work towards, I know life isn't that easy, simple or kind. We won't always know what will happen next. Sometimes we just have to persevere and do what is within our capabilities. This is something I've learnt throughout my teens, and it's been reaffirmed in my graduate life. All of the ups an downs have led me to here; where I am now. And I'm happy knowing that. I definitely never thought that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now but that's not a bad thing. I'm kind of back to square one again but life's a roller coaster and I'm going to have ups and downs. There's no stopping that. So I'm just going to have to roll with it and really savour the happy moments.
