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?!

It was awful. I was doing the wrong course, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in order to please my mother. I spent most of it crying and didn't even want to go to my graduation. My DC's are still young but we've had little chats about careers and different routes they can take. Going to university at 18 isn't the only option and I'm desperate for them to have that knowledge.

Yes, I was also brought up to believe university was the best time of your life but I was the most depressed when there. (Was actually diagnosed with an episode of anxiety and depression 3 years after university but I was not as depressed as at university, just had more responsibility so had to do something about it. Didn't really 'find my crowd'. Those feelings brought up recently when I coversation came up at work about university students now not socialising, which is what university is all about and they will never have that time back....and yes, neither will I.

@Calmingvibrations @StoneColdBitch urgh the upturned collars! Forgot about those. Often on a pale pink shirt. With Jack Wills jogging bottoms. Urgh. And yes the obsession with rugby.
The thing that I find most depressing, looking back, was that a large number of the girls in my college spent a lot of their time watching boys play (in retrospect very mediocre quality) sport. And yet these were girls who had got into a top university. Depressing. Also drinking society initiations. Awful. Girls used to wear next to nothing and get so pissed they couldn’t walk, and get boys from other drinking societies to write all over their bodies with marker pens in the college bar. I’m not joking, that actually happened.

I was very ill, mentally and physically. I soldiered on regardless.

I want to go back and give that poor girl a hug.

I didn't have a particularly good time, I didn't make proper friends although I did have a group of people from my course that I hung around with. I felt that I was the only person taking things seriously, I wanted to do well and it felt like no-one else cared. Plus they weren't interested in going to gigs, joining societies, etc. I did try, for example I joined the film group and the orchestra but it was all a bit rubbish.

I ended up quite isolated, going to lectures and tutorials and then just doing things by myself. I felt like people were laughing at me for going to the library and actually working.

I went on to do an MA and then a PGCE at a different university in a different city and was much happier. The postgraduate students also worked hard an wanted to do well, plus I made some proper friends.

I feel quite sad about it when I look back. I should have had a gap year first or gone somewhere different or tried joining different societies. I was a very young 18 though.