University: why?

I have emerged from three years doing an undergraduate degree in English literature very much scathed. I went from "omg I love books so much!" to "I never want to read another book in my life get away from me". Of course, three days later and I'm re-reading Harry Potter but that's neither here nor there. How did I take such a drastic turn?

Your typical third year student.

1. Studying dead white men. Like, all the time. In one of my modules, the tutor talked about the same five white dudes every. Single. Week. It was a twenty-two-week module.

2. Literary criticising everything to death.

3. Books. So many books. Every week. The reading list never ended.

4. Sitting in the library, seeing the same faces, doing the same thing, every day.

5. Not having any time for hobbies. First year wasn't so bad and even in second year I managed to squeeze in some fun time. Third year? Forghedaboudit.

6. Some of-

You know what? Let's just move on because I could rant forever. What I ultimately learned was that you really have to be dedicated to the subject to study it at such depths for so long. Seriously. If you're thinking about doing a course at university because it will get you a load of money later on but you actually hate it - don't do it! You'll get to third year and you will hate your course. Or yourself. Or both. I did, and I actually wanted to do my course.

Here's another tip: first year is built to weed out the weak. Many will fall. The trick to staying upright is to read as much of the set texts as possible, don't go out late, don't make friends etc etc etc.

Second year? Okay you can have friends and stay out all night but only if you're willing to spend at least one night in the library. And I mean sleeping over in the library, doing work the whole time. Who needs to shower, am I right? Sure, it will be fun at first, surrounded by all your friends and their laptops and their eager faces. You might make it to midnight and think to yourself "this is so exciting! I now can't even go home if I want to because public transport is no longer running!" Somewhere around 3 or 4am, when you're struggling to read a language you've known for twenty years and the girl next to you is crying because she can't figure out how to make her essay flow, you will realise you have made a very, very big mistake.

Third year is what it's all been leading up to. It's the year of hating tutors, hating your grades, hating the institution, hating the system that made you think university was ever a good idea. Honestly? I have not had a worse time in my life than when I let the stress get to me. My anxiety increased dramatically, I was in the hospital at some point - I genuinely didn't think I was going to make it out of university alive.

But I did. I'm here. And I'm here to stay - and write.