“I’m going to university to get a degree.” That’s what you tell your uncles and aunts, your parents’ friends and your old boss who cannot comprehend why you would want to leave behind a cushy £5 an hour for the thrill of mopping up Dolmio from the supermarket floor to move up north and ponder over what it would mean for the world should the moon really be made of cheese (no, I’m not making this up).
As you’re reeling off this spiel though, the one about how you can’t wait to really immerse yourself in your chosen subject, come out with a first and walk into an office with your name on the door, there is that little guilty feeling inside – the one that whispers, actually, it’s really because I want to spend the next three years of my life pissing about, having loads of sex and drinking my liver to ruins. But you can’t really tell granny that, can you?
In the same way, you can’t really tell your mates that what you’re most excited about is getting stuck into your degree. There’s no point – they’ll know you’re lying because they feel exactly the same way as you do.
Whilst the point of university, on a totally economic basis, is to gain yourself the qualifications you’ll need to get a good job, with a good wage that will eventually lead you to a place in life where the benefits have far outweighed the costs, it is not the sole reason people go. Nor should it be.
I do English Literature, so my case is probably a little more extreme than those of you who are about to launch yourselves into three years of Economics, but sitting here now, I genuinely cannot think of one thing I have learnt during the first two years of my degree that will be at all useful in later life. Actually, to be brutally honest, I can’t really think of anything I’ve learnt from my degree at all.
Sounds massively depressing, I know – I’ve basically just admitted to spending three grand a year (yep, just the three for me) on something that will prove to be completely useless. Apart from that’s not the case at all – and not because I will (hopefully) be coming out with the qualifications I need next summer whether I have learnt anything or not.
It is because university really is more about the experience than the end product of a piece of paper with some numbers on it. Not the experience of getting smashed every night, as fun as it may be, but of university life as a whole.
I know it’s a massive cliché, and I’m now risking sounding like the pretentious literature student I prayed I would never become, but it really is true. There is a good chance you will learn more about yourself and what you want to do with your life from getting involved in societies than you ever will over the course of your degree. I know I’m biased, but an involvement in media societies will be of far more use and enjoyment to someone who wishes to tread that career path than a 2:1 in Philosophy, for example.
You’ll probably even gain more simply from meeting the array of people from across the world, all from different backgrounds, than you will during three years’ worth of 9.15 Thursday morning lectures.
So, I guess the lesson is, next time Auntie Joan, Dad’s mate from the office or the Sainsbury’s Portsmouth branch manager asks you why you’re going to university, don’t be afraid to tell them the real reason. Just like your friends, they probably never believed the rubbish about your passion for your degree either.