How Do We Know We Are Doing It Right?

By Eloise Nickson

“I’m doing a degree that I love, I have uni friends that I love, I’m at a University I worked hard to get into - so why do I feel so dissatisfied?” And when I say dissatisfied, I mean Gilmore Girls season five Rory dissatisfied.

When I first started applying to university, my parents drilled it into my head that I should only go if I go to study a subject that I am passionate about and that my heart was fully in - a luxury many people that I know didn’t have. Though I had that luxury, I lacked in another: struggling with, what at the time unmedicated and undiagnosed, mental health disorders, paired with anxiety of living costs due to an absurdly low student loan, I made the decision that I would live at home for university. How did I know this was right? I didn’t. Right or wrong I knew it was what I had to do.

I didn’t know I made the right choice until near the end of my first year. I constantly contemplated whether I was holding myself back, robbing myself of the real university experience; but as my stepfather says, ‘you’re an adult now, you have to make your own decisions.’ Our parents are no longer there to make the bed for us, and once we make our bed, we have to lie in it. I, like most people, within my first few weeks at university encountered what felt like a mid-life-crisis: my home friends who went away were blossoming, enjoying their fresher’s week, making so many friends, while I was sat in my childhood bedroom grieving the breakup of a three year relationship knowing two people from my course and never having been on a uni night out.

However, when I reached the end of my first year, I came away with amazing, nurtured friendships (thanks to many sleepovers and long cries on shoulders) and a moderately improved mental health due to help I sought, thanks to my friends - something I doubt iI would have done if I’d gone away and not had the support of my friends and family around me.

After conducting a survey recently, I realised I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was, in doubting these big life decisions. As it turns out, 66% of university students I know debated dropping out for a multitude of reasons - most commonly being increased anxiety, uncertainty on their course, or money worries. But out of this 66% of people, only one of them actually left, so what is it that made us stay?

For some interviewees, the prospect of disappointing their parents is what lead to them staying and seeing through their university course, the notion of their family seeing them as a ‘failure’ was worse than any worries university could offer. However, the reason that most people stayed in university was their friends they had made here - as one stated, the most important thing you take from university is not the degree but ‘to find the people who connect with you and help you survive this HUGE change’. And I think this is to an extent true.

Choosing a university course can feel as though it limits you to one road in your life, at times it can feel suffocating - especially, if like us English students, you are told you will probably need to work in Morrisons before you make it big writing for The New Yorker. It can feel

lonely and isolating, like no one understands your unique situation - especially when you are sat at home watching everyone thrive at university when you feel like you’re dying.

But as heavy as the weight of each of these emotions is, creating close, safe bonds at university is your ultimate survival recipe. Find those friends whose shoulders you can cry on or who want to spend Saturday night talking about every incident in your life that has formed you into you. While friends who will party with you are important for your social life; friends who will be vulnerable with you are what will keep you sane and emotionally grounded in some of the most troubling months and years of your life. When you find these people; hold onto them, nurture them, and never underestimate their importance.

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this piece by the author are their own – they do not and are not intended to represent the beliefs and opinions of Plymouth University, University of Plymouth Student Union or the Plymouth Gazette.

Picture credit: Unplash