The university experience

[justasmalltownmum]

Hi all,

Just wondering what the "university" experience means to you..

Background: I am a child of immigrant parents who barely finished college. Was the first in the family to go to University. Went to 2-3 open days that I can remember. Got in to a decent russel group uni so just went there.

Got given a timetable with classes. Went to those. Studied in the library. Had a part time job. Passed with good grades.

There were no real friends made at all. No clubs/ societies really joined. "Tasted" a few.

My degree choice also didn't really give out any information on careers/ internships/ summer placements etc. so none of those either.

Then I graduated. Even graduation day was just my parents and I. Had a photo and left.

It was all so underwhelming..
This was almost 15 years ago.

So what was your experience like? What do you wish for your children?
Thanks!

I grew up in the US. We didn't get much help from schools about uni and my parents were not much better (even though they both have post graduate degrees and my sister was already in uni). I didn't get into the uni I really wanted, so went to one I applied late to. Hated it - I was 17 and too young, had little in common with my roommate and didn't like the drinking culture (small uni town). Left, worked/travelled and ended up going to art school and moved to NY - I just picked the best school that accepted me, never went to an open day first time I saw it was at my interview. Shared a flat with three other girls which was ok. Didn't think much of the course and no social aspect to it at all so transferred to it's Paris campus where I found my tribe (the uni was still meh). Anyhoo it was great and I socialised more than I ever had before or since but only made one friend I'm still vaguely in touch with but it was just a few years out of my life and I can't really relate to it now (I'm 62). Young free and single. It was before the internet or mobiles so you were really on your own in terms of support. I remember we lived on baguettes and cauliflower dipped in vinegar when it got towards the end if the month. Don't know how my mother didn't go mad with worry (and I rarely gave them a second thought)! I think I wrote her a couple letters? I went to England to stay with relatives for Xmas, and worked over the summer in Corsica.
I did have a very part time job during term time but confess that was just a bit of spending money I had student loans but my parents paid it off eventually.
I've been much more involved with my DD's application and choices. My son did not go to uni he got a vocational qualification.
She feels she may not have applied to the right unis, and I can't get over that they only have five choices. She has to choose between Durham and Bath. I'm hoping she spreads her wings and has a great 'uni experience', though I'm well aware it can be awful or just not all it's cracked up to be. I think we oversell it as 'the time of your life' when many are just homesick and overwhelmed and doubt their choices and worry about future work opportunities.

I think I had a classic positive uni experience. Went to uni in the 90s, graduating with a 2:1 and many friends I still see. I went to my first choice RG uni, was desperate to leave my well-heeled safe village for more exciting city life. Like you OP, I had a timetable of lectures and seminars and read tons in between. However, I also joined a few (overlapping) societies, found my alternative tribe, and went out virtually every night. My halls weren't great, most of my friends were elsewhere, but loved sharing a house with friends in the later years. Toned down the social life once I got together with my now husband and had a part-time job, but for me it absolutely was the best time of my life.

I think it's different now with less of a drinking culture and the advent of technology. Some still want that lifestyle, but mine wants an academic haven with the odd society and low pressure conviviality rather than full on partying. There's enough range of options to suit all; the trick is identifying what is right before you get there.

I had the absolute time of my life. A wild social whirl in gorgeous surroundings and made lots of friends. I'm hugely nostalgic about it still, and I graduated 30 years ago!

My dd is in her first year now and also having a great time. She'd had a bit of a rubbish last few years at school, wasn't really that sure what she wanted to do, but settled in really well and is doing really well in her course too. Looking forward to her 3rd year abroad too.

Where did you live whilst you studied I think that makes a big difference as does being involved in sports clubs and similar. Most people living in Halls and then go on to live in shared houses together tend to be the 'friends for life's type. It doesn't sound like you took advantage of that.

I enjoyed my first year, worked all summer so didn't have to work whilst there. Second year I had a very ill family member so studied hard so that I could have time in the holidays before they died and could support my parents. Then I didn't go back for third year due to other reasons. I then did an OU degree where going to graduation is strange as you don't know anyone else and can go to the ceremony anytime after you finish your course.

For my DD, I want the university experience to be about meeting new people and having new experiences, traveling and a sandwich year abroad if possible. The studying is important but that can be done in other ways like through the OU but living away from home in a supported environment without the confines of work and limited work holiday etc is possibly more valuable.

I was at a rural comp and was first person to get into Cambridge from there and area with 30% unemployment with very few professionals so university was a completely different world for me. My parents didn't know that much, my Dad had said he wouldn't give me my grant if I went to the LSE who had also offered as it was full of communists. 😂I had been to the open day and it was full of private school boys wanting to work in the city. I was given instructions by my Mum to find a good husband to marry there and think she hoped I would not work after.

Freshers week we were given chance to join all the university clubs and I joined gymnastics, swimming, debating society (as a friend I made said it was good for socialising), a political group which held regular events and dinners. Swimming was the university team and I went to that and you had to swim something like 80 lengths as a warm up then they started racing. I got out at that point, had done 80 lengths and was worn out. They told me I could have a place on the uni team as had kept up with them but said I would need to also go to gym as well and I said no, had never been to a gym. Gymnastics team I did go to once a week, 3 hours of gymnastics and I also helped take children from a refuge swimming once a week. Went to debates and dinners / events with political speakers. I was also at a college where 80% were male so I got invited to loads of parties, I had never been to a parties before really but I started to enjoy them and went to a lot. The university course didn't take that much time. Made friends with the other economists and some medics and a classist and there were formal dinners each night. It was a huge change for me and first formal the engineering professor was very rude about me coming from a non-southern comp saying was my ambition in life just to have 2.4 children like every other woman from there and do nothing else. The lovely other students could see it bothered me and one boarding school boy told me I should just leave and not be spoken to like that so I did. And professor wrote me a whole page apology and then I mentioned it to tutor who asked for letter and read him the riot act. Everyone other than that was lovely and had an amazing time. Went to a few May balls which I didn't have to pay for. Quite short terms 8 weeks so loads of holiday and everything was cheap there. Got a travel grant which paid for me to go to Germany. Accommodation was really cheap £200 a term so being frugal as well I never got into debt.

Social contact continues to this day and there are regular events like dinners at the college, May bumps garden party, art gallery, drinks and dinner, classical concerts and dinner were we all meet up and chat. Very caring place to this day, like being part of a big family - were kind when I had cancer. I loved it and it also got me used to dealing with people from private and public schools and it gave me so much confidence that I didn't find the work difficult. Daughter will go to my twin college at Oxford and I hope its as good for her as it was for me. So far they have been very kind and it looks hopeful. She knows loads of people going which I think will help. I knew 1 person doing medicine in a different college who I had known for a few weeks before but I made friends quite easily. It was lovely not to be bullied like at school which I hated.

And the boarding school boy I did economics with told me to never accept just being someone's husband and to do a career I wanted. It was good advice and made me realise I could do jobs though that was a little tricky as no family experience. I had a Masters place there but did not take it up as needed to earn but don't regret that. The boarding school guy did offer to pay for me but didn't feel right to accept that.

Mine was a lot different from most of my friends and also my older sister.

I got in to a crappy polytechnic on clearing; and that was after retakes and reapplying to much easier course! In the early '90s I don't think Open Days were so much of a thing. Loads less people applied and you were invited for interview. Or not.

Anyway, I got my clearing place about a week before term started and managed to find accommodation living as a lodger with a lovely family. But it was a lonely experience. No exciting halls of residence etc.

My campus was much more like a 6th Form College really. I don't remember there even being a bar there. The rest of the students were also seemingly other people who had got poor grades. Or there were some mature students. I remember a guy who was a mature student who'd given up work to go to university in his late thirties and was really disappointed.

I did a joint humanities degree course in 2 ridiculously unrelated subjects. I wanted to do one of them but the other was all they had left in terms of spaces and was a language from scratch. I'm crap at languages. So I basically didn't attend any classes in that subject and did in a different subject I wanted to change to. I schmoozed the head of department and was lucky enough to get to change.

I actually really enjoyed the courses. I made some friends but for my second and third years I moved in with my boyfriend (he's now my Dh) on the other side of the city so missed out on large parts of the student life. Often, I'd commute to the campus, find the place shut down for some march or another and then decide if I could be arsed to go on the march or go back home to bed. This was often weather dependent.

My dc have had such an amazing opportunity at university compared to me. But then they passed their A levels well! However, I did like the degree I did. But most of all IT WAS FREE!!! In fact, I even got a little grant to live on. Amazing!

Hmm, I felt like a fish out of water most of the time. Didn't really fit in.

I was from a rural area and then went to a red brick. I had a strong Northern accent, no one else did. Not sure it was the best place for me really.