Did anyone else have a rubbish time at university?

[Magda16]

Just that really, I'm interested to know. Universities have been in the news a lot recently obviously, and lots of people talking about the 'student experience'. It's got me thinking back to my own student experience, in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
I went to a very prestigious university, from a state school in the Midlands. Had an absolutely miserable time, and was bullied. I've always felt like a bit of a failure over it really, I mean, who doesn't have a great time at university? So I was wondering, anyone else there who hated it?!

Me 🙋‍♀️. I knew I didn't want to go the summer before I left but I had a lot of pressure from my parents. I lived in shitty halls that were knocked down after my first year. I was travelling home every weekend by train (about a 4 hour journey each way) and in the end I transferred to a uni at home. Started my second year and by Christmas I was failing miserably. I dropped out in the end. But completed my degree later on through OU and I got my masters last year and now I'm planning a PhD.

I think that 18 is very young still and I just wasn't ready. I'm 32 now with a toddler and I love studying!

I didn't actively hate it, but it most certainly didn't live up to my expectations.

I just felt constantly stressed. It felt like I was in floods of tears for three years straight, worrying whether assignments would be good enough, worrying I'd failed, etc.

I also didn't make a single lifelong friend either. 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I had a very hard time because I was struggling with health issues, personal problems and depression. The university’s response was to formally discipline me and tell me to pull myself together or they’d kick me out. No pastoral support at all. This was 20 years ago but it was still pretty shitty.

Yes me. Initially moved away, but realised after a week i'd made a big mistake on the course and location. I very luckily managed to get a transfer to my home uni but i really didn't enjoy it at all.

I stuck it out and got my degree but didn't make any friends or enjoy the social side at all. In hindsight i think i went because my parents expected me to go, whereas i wish I'd had at least a year out to decide what i wanted to do with my life.

I don't look back at that time fondly at all.

Hated it.. I was 35 when I started..

Not rubbish exactly but socially I was completely out of my depth and I was lonely and unhappy for much of the time. I met my best friends there but also some of the most unpleasant people I've ever encountered and there was some fairly horrible behaviour around. OP I identify with what you are saying about the failure feelings - there's a huge pressure to be having/have had the time of your life and I similarly look back on it with regret sometimes, however, i think it's a tough time for many people, when I think of friends' experiences too.

Yes me. Didn't make any lifelong friends either. Just didn't gel with anyone I was in halls with in the first year, had no one to live with for the subsequent years. Didn't even like the town I was in.

Yes, I didn;t have the experience.

The first year in halls I found it very difficult to make friends. People thought I was stuck up (which was funny for a working class girl from an industrial city). I wasn't into partying or socialising.

The standards on my course were not very high. I did make a few friends on my course due to our shared interest in the subject and in my second year my boyfriend went to uni about half an hour away so we moved in together.

I was probably at uni the same time as you. Ended up in halls out of town which were a pain for busses. I was the first in my family to go to uni so no one could give any advice and I just didn’t have a clue.

I practically dropped out in my 3rd year, but they let me do my course from home. They’d post course materials and I sent back work, went up and did my exams (2) as an overnight trip.

If my kids go, they’ll benefit from having 8/9 of my generation attend uni.

I was pretty unhappy, though there were good bits. Some of it was just that my personal life was imploding at the time. But also just culture shock. I went to a very stuffy Cambridge college from a private girls' school. We'd all been taught to believe we were really privileged and fortunate, and also taught that it wasn't polite to harp on about it.

It absolutely stunned me that this college was dominated by braying old Etonians and similar who imagined anyone from north of Cambridge itself was 'northern' and therefore poor and stupid. Also that if you had had a private/public school education you should boast about it.

I remember on the first day someone pointed out I'd misspelled something, and when I said calmly 'oh yes, I'm dyslexic' they literally burst out laughing and said I couldn't possibly be or I'd never have got in. Then two lads came round saying they were 'introducing themselves' to everyone and asked me and the other girl on my staircase where we were from and where we went to school. I was from Nottinghamshire and she was from Middlesborough, so they concluded we were 'both from the same area'. We got that the whole time we were there.

I just remember feeling the whole place was full of super-confident types who all seemed to know each other and who took over all the clubs and societies. I just really liked my subject and I'd imagined chatting about it with other people who enjoyed it too, but I ended up feeling a bit stupid and didn't work anything like as hard as I should have done. I ended up really struggling and the college didn't really provide the sort of support it should have done (I now know much more about what was going on at the time, and they had some pretty hair-raising issues around student support, so I was actually relatively lucky!).

I wish I'd known at the time that a lot of people who seem very confident are anything but.

Me. I never really found my 'tribe'. I did have friends but they were very different to me, and it's telling that I only kept in touch with them for a few years afterwards. I used to go home often at weekends, even though it was a few hours away, as well as visiting my home friends in their university towns. They all seemed to be having a much better time than me, and I felt like I'd failed a bit in comparison.

I got a first though! Plenty of time to study when your social life is crap.

Had a bit of a love hate relationship with it. I went as a mature student (40s), commuted from home rather than stayed in halls, and although I had friends there things fizzled out once we’d left (none of us lived near each other). The group didn’t really gel which made things less pleasant (back-stabbing, cliques), and I had constant issues with one lecturer not doing something very simple yet making things hard with my dyslexia (to the point I had to report him to the disability team).

I loved the lectures and the campus, but I found the human side of things as hard as the studying side, which just added to the stress. But I survived and now have a professional qualification, so I absolutely don’t regret going.

I dropped out before I finished my first year. Combination of the course not being what was expected, and being a non-drinker who commuted in (1.5hrs each way - thanks to an controlling ex). I always felt like I didn't belong. It definitely wasn't the exciting time I'd been led to expect.

Me. I went to uni about the same time as you, OP.

I was in halls in a wing with a bunch of 'laddy' lads who drank excessively, were loud and obnoxious, tried all the bedrooms doors at 2am and then kicked and banged on them when they were locked. Yelled awful things. There was just one woman in charge of the whole building and when I tried to tell her what was happening and ask to be moved she told me there was no other space so I'd have to learn to ignore it. That growing up was about developing a thick skin.

They were nothing short of bullies who'd realise there would be zero consequences to their actions. It did not surprise me, years later, to read this uni had one of the worst records for sexual assult.

There was zero support to help you settle in and understand uni life - even things like timetables were more like rumours. No one to turn to with concerns or worries. No one who gave a damn, tbh.

I was the first from my family to go to uni so no one there could really help me, as they didn't know anything about it.

I went from someone who, during A Levels, was highly sociable and often out with friends, to someone who NEVER went out and only ate cold food or take away, because to cook anything required going into the shared kitchen where these boys drank and shouted and played "hilarious" pranks like pissing in the milk or swapping sugar for salt.

I remember several occasions where I woke up in the morning and was disappointed that I had - that I had to wake up and get up and live. I started to resent my family for being the reason I would not act on those thoughts - out of guilt of what it would do to them.

I moved into a house with 2 friends in my second year but, by then, the damage had been done. I dropped out not long into my 2nd year - and thus ended my career in law.

I did OK after that and have gone on to have a pretty good and enjoyable career in IT. I recently did a part-time distant degree in a subject I love, just for the satisfaction of finally getting one. But I hate that my uni experience was so blighted and have been deeply ashamed of it. My family don't know how bad it got, to this day, and I don't intend to tell them.

The one glimmer of light in it all was that I met my very best friend. Someone who I KNOW would help me bury a body . Someone who, 20+ years later is still a great friend (and who also had a shit time at the same uni). So, there's that.

I suspect there are more of us "uni survivors" than we realise...

Also went to a prestigious university from a state school, and although I wasn’t bullied at all, the whole experience was the biggest let down of all time. With the benefit of hindsight, it was almost inevitable. I loved school and the wonderfully close friendships of built up whilst there...why, for one second, I thought university would or could compete with this, I’ll never know.

I remember being bombarded with the message of how it was going to be the best experience of my life, so I had really high expectations. The reality was I was away from the comfort of home, from my lovely family with people who were trying so desperately hard to make friends. It was very odd. I enjoyed it by the end, but definitely not the best days of my life. I’ll be far more realistic with my children if they choose to go to university.

That should have said “close friendships I’d built up”

I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t really click with anyone and struggled with this as I’d actually come from a boarding school where I was already used to living with friends and I had a big group of them. I knew people and went out but still felt pretty lonely and disappointed (and actually a bit embarrassed) to not have made close amazing friends like you’re apparently supposed to.

Me, I commuted so never moved into halls but from what I saw from my friends' rooms I know I wouldn't have enjoyed living there. I also never really made 'good' friends with anyone which I'm guessing is because I never moved out of home. Catch 22 I guess.

Didn't particularly enjoy my course and almost quit in 2nd year.

I'm glad I stayed at home though, love my comforts too much and have other close friends in my life. Also glad I saw it through.

When I look back I'm not sure how I even survived university. I have severe social anxiety and that time was really tough for me.

I wouldn't say I hated it but it wasn't the amazing time you're led to expect it will be. I think that I was in no state to go really. My family had just fallen apart in a really catastrophic, dramatic way and I think I was getting over something akin to trauma. Not the time you're able to meet people and be carefree really. I have no idea why I chose the University I did either, it was so solid and middle class. I should've gone somewhere more politically active and where coming from a slightly shit state school was the norm.

Yes, I ended up in an EA relationship with a mature student.
Made no friend’s whatsoever

I hated it. I didn't get the grades for the course and university I wanted so ended up going through clearing to anywhere that would take me. Totally the wrong course, amazed I scraped through. I really wish I'd been allowed to take a year out but it wasn't to be.

I didn't make any friends either. All I remember is crying a lot.

Me. I had no self esteem. I've recovered a bit now.