Does anyone miss being a student?

[Sammy900]

I know I'm not being unreasonable because I love being a mum ;p and I love my job, family life (stop me if I'm wrong) but I do miss it...

It's that time of year again, new pens, new folders :) new learning - my little one is experiencing this now which is awesome and it's her turn....

Aaah Uni - remember the procrastinating, the cramming, the not sleeping or eating properly for 3 days, living off coffee and fags to get an assignment finished. Not being able to even nip to the shop because essay time was critical at that point. My mum used to send me food parcels up in a taxi so I didn't have to leave the house sometimes (lucky)!

The relief when you finally got to the end and just had references to do so you could open the vino and play some music (at 4am), 50 research articles and books spread all over the floor.

Hallucinating or going numb from the lack of sleep required to do so ha...walk of shame at the end finally handing it in and zombie central on the way home- main aim BED!

I had a grand finale when I realized that I had 8 days to re-write my whole independent study as I had gone off on a tangent with two of the chapters - waaaahhhhh ...I also had a last minute binding breakdown when I accidently chopped my project up once

aaah those were the days

Oh it's good to hear about other people's good experiences :-)

So many happy memories I'll never forget. It's making me want to go back in time now!!

I came home from a night out once and all the furniture from my living room was in the garden haha

We once covered a mate's bedroom in newspaper. Every single surface. Mug on his desk was wrapped in newspaper. Pillow, duvet, anything. Then we papered over the entire doorway so when he opened the door there was just a wall of newspaper to tear through just to get in

We put a sign on his door saying 'welcome to fleet Street'

It took HOURS

But the result was epic

Graphista

Although I wasn't as politically active as you I can totally relate.... the expression you are encouraged to have at Uni is something that is unique.
Encouraging young adults to be passionate in a safe space, we were definitely told to be proud when we first arrived at Uni, that we had made it in some way and now we can go and explore- and that for me personally was when I first got my sense of freedom -

which is massive really :)

bananafish81

hahaha! Brilliant that must've took some effort!!

I got to do SO much extra curricular stuff that gave me experiences I'd never have otherwise had

College women's officer and attending NUS women's conference

Producing loads of student theatre (one of my actors is now an emmy award winning actor who was on the cover of time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people!).

Taking a show to the Edinburgh fringe (with about 15 of us sharing one flat for the whole month)

Writing column in the student newspaper

Organising music events

Doing student radio

And having attended the infamous Oxford Piers Gaveston party (the one where David Cameron was supposed to have fucked a pig), I can say that the daily mail headlines about scandalous raves in the countryside with drug taking and orgies are pretty much 100% factually correct!

And it was a genuine privilege to have hour long tutorials every week with world leading scholars. The discipline of having to write an essay and defend your argument in a discussion with the person who actually wrote one of the key texts on the reading list taught me so much

I made amazing friends and loved loved loved my time at university. I feel very very lucky to have had the opportunities I did.

I'm just annoyed that we didn't think of that! We nick named a guy American Psycho too - we could've put stocks and shares print everywhere

bananafish81

Wow that's really impressive Uni days!! I mean that's what I'm talking about!! Love it :D

Haha the American psycho room would have been amazing!!

I think it took the best part of a day to paper the whole room. It was totally worth it

Did anyone else do pub golf? We had proper scorecards and everything. And had to do it three legged - although most people decoupled by the 4th pub when staying upright was more challenging.

No tactical chunders allowed.

Reading the 'pub golf' Wikipedia page is taking me right back!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub_Golf

I really missed uni. I ended up living with my parents afterwards in a place where I had no friends and nothing I tried helped me build a social life. I really got the September angst each of those years.

I also loved having access to amazing speakers, soaking it all in - being flabbergasted by mind blowing lectures and chatting about it in the pub after and having the time to do so - thinking about it again, regurgitating knowledge and being creative with stuff you had original ideas about...being friends with the biggest bunch of random people but they are all awesome :) all incredible. I had the best time

My lectures were pretty interesting, and I could follow them for the most part, but the essay questions were awful!! I remember sending them to my mother and she didn’t have any idea what they were on about either. Neither did I - and I was the student on the module!!
I wasn’t much cop at essays anyway though, but it was better when I understood what the title was getting at...

Never college/ 6th form years - I was an academic and even at grammar school was mocked for being a swot.

I do miss my first year at university sometimes. Halls - the crappy little room, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with 4 others who were quirky and mostly outsiders at school, too. We bonded well, had many laughs and supported each other through the drama that being a 19/20-year-old is.

The level of freedom was awesome. For the first time ever, no one asking where I'm going, how long I'll be, why on earth I think joining x club or eating y food is a good idea right now. Pulling a 72-hour sleepless stunt just to get that last essay handed in and then going into work and still trying to pull a coherent sentence together. Dying our hair every colour under the sun and wearing the most ridiculous outfits, just because we could.

Something happened in my second year at university, which changed all that. I was suddenly being made to grow up rather quickly and my freedom disappeared.

My third year was dominated by the rising panic of still not having found a job and being increasingly skint. I secured a job at the very last opportunity I had. The experience of being intellectually brilliant, but on the job market still having to fight and not just being able to walk into a job like I always thought would happen really grounded me for my working life.

But I do look back sometimes and miss my first year. I miss the sense of adventure and opportunity. But I like being in my 30s now for different reasons.

I think what I ultimately miss is having so many amazing and interesting people in a relatively small area. Most weekends I ended up having some sort of huge Sunday lunch at someone's house. The circles I mixed in weren't cliquey and you could end up talking about anything.

After university people I met just seemed reserved and boring as fuck.

My last year at school was brilliant though. So many 18th birthday parties. In the first term it felt like I went to a party every week.

Yes! Even at nearly 60!
Listen to the song "I wish I could go back to college"...from Avenue Q.
Heartbreaking.

YES! At Uni I had oceans of free time, was living in London for the first time (zone 1 too, which I have never achieved since), had loads of exciting new friends, and I was studying psychology so...not much work, really. Happy, happy days.

The world of work came as a harsh awakening, I can tell you.

No, I didn't really enjoy it. I hated having no money, hated the lack of routine, and was constantly thinking 'what am I doing here?'.

It might have been because I was depressed (which I was) but also I was at a university I didn't really want to be at, doing a subject that I had been pushed into by my teachers. I regret going to university, I didn't gain anything from it. Unless you include debt.

Uni - still miss it and I’m in my late 40s now. Prob didn’t work hard enough but I had a great time and got up to things my mum wouldn’t have approved of!!
There were crappy times there too, but on the whole it was great. Living away from home, social life on your doorstep, eating crap, getting pissed, snogging randoms, clubbing etc. I do remember the stress of the essay/assignment deadlines - the pub on a Sunday night once you’d got your work done for Monday was a good feeling!

OMG! Just as I'm thinking about uni, an ad for Morgan (Morgan de toi) has popped up! I wore that all the time at uni but thought they were long gone out of business!

I have hugely fond memories of both Art School for the GAD diploma and then years later at Uni as a mature student. I'm sure I disgraced myself at both, but managed to come out with a life long and very dear friend from uni. For that, I'm entirely grateful.

It had its ups and downs of course, but if I could, I'd go back like a shot, the learning, the fun, the hard work involved. But it's probably all online learning now... Just fabulous at the time!!

I miss it sometimes too. The freedom, the lack of responsability, the friends, nights out, carefree, deciding what to do with my time, living in the city, being around beautiful ornate buildings every day..

School? No.

University? Yes!

Gosh they really were amazing years. Full of learning, hope for the future, lots of sports and hobbies and fun with friends and discovering raving in a bit way 😀

Ah I am about to start Uni (3 weeks and counting) and I am so excited! I am off shopping for my stationary and folders this weekend, and a decent bag to carry it all in

I can't wait go get cracking and expand my brain, too.

I’m starting postgrad tomorrow, over 20 years from my first foray into uni. 😬

Enjoying reading this thread.