WELCOME TO REALITY By Amber Bell
Oh we have a blissful life, us students! Glorious loans paid into our bank accounts every few months, care-free lifestyles, no commitments... Sleep all day and party all night, with a brief glance at a text book every now and then. Our lives are just an endless wave of fun, floating along in a bubble far away from reality, just waiting for it to one day burst.
Except, this isn’t the case at all. At least, not for me. Yet time and time again this is the image I see portrayed in the media about students, the idea society has about us. Albiet, there are of course students whom this depiction wouldn’t be far off, but surely it is slightly stereotypical to tarnish us all with the same brush?
I often hear people my age gush about how glad they are they didn’t go to University, how only fools go to University: why stay in education for three years just to end up in monumental debt with slim chance of securing a career afterwards? Or that going to University is just deterring reality for another three years: earning money and having a full-time job is the only way anyone can experience what it is to be a part of the “real world”.
So let me ask you this: what even is reality? Because I can assure you, my life certainly adheres to the harsh, cold reality that so many speak of. I may not work 9-5 in a job I despise, but that doesn’t mean my life is a bed of roses. Student life is not easy, in any way shape or form. I’m sure for many it is, but that is simply down to a personal choice,
the same way that those who choose to live a life of comfort lodging with their parents their whole life choose their life path. It is one of my biggest annoyances in life when people assume that because I am a student, I have a care-free life. The “reality” is I balance a full-time education with a part-time job, an internship, work experiences, volunteering, society committee and student representative commitments, constant graduate applications AND somewhere amongst all of that, I try to slot in a slight social life. And I do all that because I am so determined to get a job I am proud of, that I have dreamed of my whole life after University.
It was never an option for me not to go to University. Contrary to popular belief, this degree will help me in my future career. And I’m not being naïve here: I know that it won’t guarentee me anything. But any job application I look at in the field I want to work in starts off
by asking you for a 2:1 in a degree of a high caliber. Therefore it was clearly the only option. I’ve never been a person happy with “settling”, so no matter what the cost (mentally and financially!) I knew it was something I had to do.
This post is not discrediting those who didn’t go to University: it is simply making a point of the fact that University is not a walk in the park. It is a time-consuming, stressful experience, with the added pressure that if you do not achieve your ultimate goal, it really has been a waste of a tough three years. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. Despite the stress, these have been a fantastic three years in which I have learnt so much about myself, and experienced things and met people I never thought I would. And as I enter my final term of University, I will not think of it as leading me to reality, but simply the next stage of my life. For in the words of Albert Einstein:“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
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