University, the big jump from high school.
We all come to university with a fresh view of how things are going to be. Moving away from your old friends, hoping to keep in touch, meeting new people, living in a new town (for some) and leaving the petty world of high school behind us. Like me, for most, high school was a blur of happy and sad memories, great friends, stressful work and bitter rivalries.
However, having nearly finished my first year at university, I look back and question…is university all that different from high school? Apart from finally being legal to go out and drink, having a heavier workload and a larger campus to contend with, I struggle to find the differences between the social aspects of university and high school.
As I flash back to different events that have occurred since October last year, the social implications I have faced seem similar in both universities and high schools I have attended in England and Australia. Being a girl, and making friends with other girls will always have the same pros and cons. The bonds you make can be created in such a short time, but so too can the rivalries and bitter hatred formed between some.
In high school, you could sit next to someone in one lesson that you have never met before, and within a few weeks, be best friends. Tell each other everything, have inside jokes and start a bond of trust that only occurs between ‘best friends forever!’ But at high school, unaware of what it is like for the boys (sorry, guys), there was also a bitter tendency to hate the girl on the other side of the canteen. It’s a big part of high school, rather than focussing on education, it was who had the better hairstyle, most impractical but expensive bag and who had the hotter boyfriend. Personally, I came to university thinking that all the catty remarks, pathetic arguments and hostility would vanish. However, in the past 6 months I have been at York, I have made and broken friendships as I have always done.
I have, reluctant as I am to admit, disliked people I hardly know and made face value judgements. Sure, we have all matured, realised that there is more to the future than what happens tomorrow and understood that with hard work comes rewards, but it seems inevitable to say that we haven’t really put these new found abilities into practice. Think to yourself, how many times have you judged someone you don’t know, only to talk to them and realise you were completely wrong? How many of you have made a remark to a friend that you wouldn’t repeat to the person in question? I will be honest and put my hand up to both of those and admit that I know I’m far from perfect myself.
I sit here on the train, I have already judged the woman opposite, and from the glances I have caught, she has done the same back to me! So, why do we do it? In my opinion, no matter how hard we try, we are always going to have the judgemental side. It’s human nature. It happens in the playground, the lecture theatre and in the workplace. In reality, times change and so do opinions, but from the move from high school to university, society will always keep us at the same level. It just comes down to…how long will we continue to carry on like this?