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Original poster

Reminisce about your student days with me

33 replies

Absentmindedwoman · 02/05/2022 20:46

Wistfully dreaming of my university days! I loved it. Well, not so much the first course I started but changed to a different uni and just enjoyed it so much.

Am really interested what other people experienced - what are your overriding memories?

My only regret is that sometimes I think it would've been a great opportunity to do a year abroad, which I didn't do - but then I would have missed out on a key year living with friends. I'm so glad I had that time.

What were your university highlights?

OP posts:
Fairislefandango · 02/05/2022 22:23

I wouldn't know where to begin with reminiscing! It was just utterly brilliant from start to finish, except my year abroad, which was... ok - I just didn't enjoy it much because I desperately wanted to be back at university.

I was in a very beautiful, small city, traditional collegiate university. Didn't work that hard, life was basically one long round of pleasure Grin. I have immense nostalgia about the whole thing.

woodenwindchimes · 02/05/2022 22:24

I worked mostly full-time but I did have a great time. I drank a lot and went clubbing, went every Monday to a specific student night and got off my face. Had a lovely boyfriend for couple of years. Lived it up for the other two.

Did some interesting volunteering for my degree and lived with friends.

I'm glad I did it, and it didn't cost me a penny.

Confusedmeanderings · 02/05/2022 22:39

I loved every moment, including my year abroad. I'm old enough to have had no fees to pay and a grant for living expenses. I grew up in an isolated hamlet and to suddenly find myself living surrounded by friends was amazing! I feel so grateful for having that period of independence with no responsibilities .

BowlMovement · 02/05/2022 22:44

I didn’t enjoy university at all, wish I had though. What you describe sounds lovely!

veronicagoldberg · 02/05/2022 22:49

I mostly just cringe about what an utter dickhead I was Grin

But I do have some lovely memories. I went to Oxford, which is a fucking beautiful city. I sang in the chapel choir of one of the old city-centre colleges, and remember coming out of evensong on winter nights, breath pluming in the air, walking back to my college past the lamp-lit windows.

High summers on lush lawns, the dusty hush of the Radcliffe Camera.

TimeForGouter · 02/05/2022 22:58

Oh I love threads like this.

I have so many happy memories from Uni - the parties, the friends, meeting my now DH, the classes (yep I actually really enjoyed some of them!), the meals, the adventures.

But the first thing that popped into my head is this: we had hockey training on a Friday night in the autumn/winter. I absolutely LOVED training under the floodlights, then walking home with my friends through the cold night air, skin tingling, hockey bags over our shoulders. There was the promise of hot showers and the best night of the week (Hound for those in the know :)), and of a weekend heading out to the hills or shopping or watching films or whiling away hours in the pub, and the night air filled with laughter. Those walks always felt like walking on air.

Fairislefandango · 02/05/2022 23:04

Snap @veronicagoldberg - same place same lovely memories. Summer days on the college lawn, the Botanic Gardens, mucking about in punts. I was maybe a bit of a dickhead too Grin. I don't cringe about it though - it was just fun!

FartVandelay · 02/05/2022 23:11

Oh I loved my uni days! So many wonderful 90s memories burnt into my mind.

I came here from Greece and had a thirst for knowledge. I studied sculpture at St Martins college.

GoodJanetBadJanet · 02/05/2022 23:12

Drinking snakebite and black
Culinary delights such as pasta and baked beans as a sauce
Staggering out of clubs at 3am
Those were the days lol

CloudsInMyFrap · 02/05/2022 23:13

I was expecting an amazing escape from a horrible abusive household, but found myself in a strange city, alone and lonely, exhausted (lived in cheap accommodation a long way out and didn’t drive), cold, poor, stressed and shunned for not drinking and for being of ambiguous ethnic origin (peer group was very racially segregated). This was in the late 00s.

maddening · 02/05/2022 23:14

One student night was called ER and it was £5 in, free bar all night 😳😮

Whattodo121 · 02/05/2022 23:21

It was just fab. I studied a course I loved and was fascinated by, met amazingly interesting and funny people, lots of whom I’m still in touch with (and married one of them!) I remember being drunk and carefree, nights at the student union lots of us walking back home in a big group and dropping each other off home on the way. (Neighbours must have hated us!) being able to buy 20 Marlboro lights and a packet of blue extra chewing gum for a fiver, going to our local pub for the quiz on a Sunday night. Having whole days with nothing to do other than write essays. No responsibility! Living with my best mates who I adored.

HeddaGarbled · 02/05/2022 23:22

Ah, it was brilliant. Had a lot of fun, didn’t get a very good degree. Too many memories to list, but here’s two: walking back from nights out in the early hours of the morning and prancing along the wall around the natural swimming pool up to our knees in the sea, with the lights on the prom and the slough of the sea (I know, I know, foolish and dangerous); sitting up late into the night just talking and talking about everything with people who were so much more interesting and diverse than any I’d met before.

Keladrythesaviour · 02/05/2022 23:26

Lived with incredible people, had freedom like I'd never had before and just loved all three years of undergrad. I can't describe how much those three years meant to me. Obviously it wasn't all sunshine and roses and there were tough times but looking back they were so blissful and just full of fun and laughter.
Masters was very different, but I still met some incredible people and lived in a lovely new city. And met my now DH. But my master's year was about growing up, whereas my undergrad was just enjoying life.

LeavesOnTrees · 02/05/2022 23:33

It was so much fun, nights out at the student union, then heading home with flatmates to continue the night, being on a course that was hard work but with like minded people.
Being free to be spontaneous. Spending afternoons playing pool, going to Glastonbury last minute, long summer holidays and just the sense that adult life had just begun, being young with no responsibilities.

Neverreturntoathread · 02/05/2022 23:40

Ugh. Left a wonderful secondary school with cool fun nice people, went to uni with stars in my eyes to find a very different atmosphere where getting groped / harassed / constantly asked out / pestered for sex was standard. Massively overworked, impossible to socialise without heavy drinking, lost interest in my degree subject… Eventually fell in love with someone who was sleeping with many other women… My two best friends dropped out because of the pressure…

I am not nostalgic about it at all.

FloodTheBathroom · 02/05/2022 23:44

Going out out five times a bloody week. Can't believe I had the energy! It was all very cheap, you could go out to a club for £1 on a student night (warehouse/boxes/boogies on a Thursday).
Just slobbing around watching doctors and Buffy. I had a lot of friendship and relationship problems but I also had a lot of fun.

JaceLancs · 03/05/2022 00:07

Everything!
sex - drugs - rock and roll
I left the north in the 1980s for the south
it was blissful and hedonistic

Dilbertian · 03/05/2022 00:10

The energy! I did a science degree, so lots of timetabled hours, was an active member of various daytime and evening clubs, was on my feet all day at my Saturday job, and still had the energy to go out Saturday nights. Pulling all-nighters to get coursework submitted by 8am, and still going to labs and lectures that day. As long as I got a good night's sleep once a week, I could keep going fine on 4-5h a night for the rest of the week. And I didn't take anything - square and clean, that's me.

Oh, the energy - what wouldn't I give to have some of that nowadays.

Butterfly44 · 03/05/2022 00:18

Best time ever. 90s. No fees, grant to live off for the year which paid for halls and living with still some spare. Wish it was as carefree for our kids without money worries!

Sunnytwobridges · 03/05/2022 00:19

Honestly uni days were probably my favorite times. I had met my first love and he would walk me to class every day. I would hang out with my friends laughing and talking, without a care in the world. They really were the best times for me. I miss them! 😀

Hawkins001 · 03/05/2022 00:27

Absentmindedwoman · 02/05/2022 20:46

Wistfully dreaming of my university days! I loved it. Well, not so much the first course I started but changed to a different uni and just enjoyed it so much.

Am really interested what other people experienced - what are your overriding memories?

My only regret is that sometimes I think it would've been a great opportunity to do a year abroad, which I didn't do - but then I would have missed out on a key year living with friends. I'm so glad I had that time.

What were your university highlights?

Firstly somehow actually achieving my degree.

remembering rushing the bibliography list for my assignments at last moments,

leaving some assignments until e.g. Couple of days before needed handing in.

buying a binding machine to get my dissertation binded before handing it in.

meeting some intriguing people, and one very intriguing lady, even if all we did was lock eye contact across a room on a university trip.

looking back wishing I had socialized more with everyone, I had the confidence I just was trying to get my mind and perspectives together, and then busy with archaeology and Egyptian research.

Hawkins001 · 03/05/2022 00:30

Also using the shuttle bus to go to the other campus where the art rooms were, and studying some forensic books in that campuses library.

ChocAuVin · 03/05/2022 00:33

FloodTheBathroom · 02/05/2022 23:44

Going out out five times a bloody week. Can't believe I had the energy! It was all very cheap, you could go out to a club for £1 on a student night (warehouse/boxes/boogies on a Thursday).
Just slobbing around watching doctors and Buffy. I had a lot of friendship and relationship problems but I also had a lot of fun.

What years were you there, @FloodTheBathroom ? Could have run into you on the Quay on Thursday evenings Grin

runnerswimmer · 03/05/2022 00:34

Definetely the nights out and the social events that were put on by my discipline when I was studying my masters. It was always great to go out with people who you spent a lot of my with during lectures, tutorials etc.

With my undergrad, it was really just nights out with friends, their friends, really just drinking and clubbing! Going to the football half pissed and then getting fully pissed there. Always a lot of fun (what I can remember...), but I think when I got to post grad I was ready to not drink myself stupid and enjoy the nights out.

I studied geography, and I have to say the field trips were always fun. Even if it was standing waste deep in a river to measure the velocity of the current in the winter Grin

I really loved most of my classes, especially the tutorials because we always had in-depth discussions. I have to say I enjoyed my master's more though because I could specialise and we were all much closer (although my dissertation lead to a few midnight meltdowns).

Also I LOVED being in a halls of residence. A lot of good times, great community feel, always someone to drink with!