Someone said once to someone else, and I overheard it, that students have it easy and that every working person would like to be a student and lead a student’s lifestyle. Yeah, right. I’m guessing that this person must have been a student for a very short time and a long time ago, because since I’ve went to my first university, I have to tell you, my life as a student wasn’t that easy and full of roses.
Being a student is not only about parties, late mornings and socialising. It’s long hours in the library, long hours at home working on your assignments, a lot of booooring reading, and trying to make ends meet so you can afford a travel card and occasional coffee at Sturbacks. It’s also constant worrying about finding a proper work experience so when you finish your course you can have a chance to start a career other than waitressing. It’s non-stop thinking of how to combine all of the above so you can graduate with a decent grade at the end.
I know that many people think students are lazy, and they couldn’t be farter from the truth. Yeah, there are exceptions, I’ve met some of them and oh boy how they annoyed me. But the majority of students go to universities not to have it easy and have a good time spent at student union bar, but to earn their qualifications so that later they can work in an industry they are actually interested in. Taking under consideration that employers ask graduates only for 1:1 or 2:1 grades on the diploma, being a student doesn’t sound so easy any more, because these grades don’t come easily.
As a student I had to count every penny and I envied everyone who could afford ten day holiday in some tropical country, or even more - an evening out without the pressuring feeling that they should be home instead and doing a research for their final dissertation. Being a student is not easy because, as some people think, they don’t have full-time jobs. Studying is much more than having a job, because when you only work you do your job for eight/nine hours and then you go home and you can forget about it till the next day (of course I’m generalizing here). When you’re a student your mind is constantly occupied with the assignments, the reading, the exams, the studying and it doesn’t end after you leave your lectures or workshops. It’s like your brain is constantly on because of the overlapping deadlines and multitasking the studying demands.
And at the end of your course, when you are so excited that after your graduation all your stress and pressure from writing your dissertation is going to let go, that you will be able to work full-time in a job that you truly studied for, that you will be able to afford all the evenings out and foreign holidays, you face this harsh reality. You find yourself completely broke, probably in depth and discover that in fact the job market suck and as a fresh graduate with work experience of a part-time sales assistant at French Connection you have no chance of landing yourself a job because there are two hundred more competitive candidates applying for the same position.
So please, don’t say that students have it easy. People with jobs have it easy (again, I’m generalizing). There is nothing worse than years of studying for something that’s almost unreachable at the end. Some of my fellow students still are forced to work where no qualifications are required. How unfair is this.
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