16
IMPACT
To Graduate or
Not to Graduate, That is the Question The prospect of leaving university and all that it encompasses is a scary one. Eleanor writes about what she will miss about her university identity when the day finally comes to walk across that stage and throw our hat in the air. Before I came to university, three years sounded like a lifetime. My sister repeatedly told me that the time would “fly by”, but me being me, I never quite believed her. I don’t know how university can feel so slow and yet so fast. The release of our graduation date, the 20th July, was like a bad dream: me and my housemates shut down conversations about graduation as though it will only happen if we talk it into existence.
“I DON’T KNOW HOW UNIVERSITY CAN FEEL SO SLOW AND YET SO FAST” It’ll be strange going back home and that being my only home again. I confuse my parents all the time with my reference to ‘home’: “I’m heading back home”, “What, to us?!” dad replies in a panic, “Wait, no as in my home.”, “What do you mean, your home, the one with us, or the one in Nottingham?” mum asks. After two years in this student house it really has become my home, and I love everything about it – the mouldy bathroom, the paper-thin walls, even the rat-infested garden. I know for a fact that I’ll spend a period of time mourning this house, let alone my… best…friends… that I won’t see… every. Oh god. Day. I have a little Nottingham routine and it goes a bit like this: muddle through a week of lectures; crawl into my housemate’s bed whenever possible (here I am right now); stress occasionally about all the sh*t I have to do; confess my sins on a Friday night in Bodega; Beeston Park Run on a Saturday followed by a Tesco shop and pancake scoffing in the Pudding Pantry - and just like that, we’re near enough ready to repeat it all over again for a new week. I’m so used to telling people at home over
Christmas or Easter when I’ll be “going back” to Nottingham that I’m not quite sure what I’ll have scripted for after I graduate. Maybe a very passive aggressive “I’m here to stay now”, or, I might just burst into tears - but hopefully not. Practically thinking, I’ve realised how difficult it’s going to be to “see” my housemates after we all move out. With one based up North in Sunderland, another down in Southampton, and then another all the way back up in Manchester again. I much prefer the idea of just stumbling a metre out of my bedroom and then directly into theirs.
BUT I RECKON EVEN WHEN I’M 50-ODD WITH 8 DOGS AND A ROLLS ROYCE AND SOMEONE ASKS ME WHAT I’M DOING WITH MY LIFE, I’LL PROBABLY STILL ANSWER “I’M A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM” Although we moan about that 9am lecture, and get wound up by those 3pm Turnitin submissions, life as a student, compared to being tied down to a 9-5 job, is pretty easy. And I’ve probably taken that for granted. I don’t think I’ll just be feeling those “post-grad blues”, I think I’ll be feeling the post-grad greens and yellows and even a midnight blue (Google it).[1] My emotions will range from jealousy (of all those students who are still students), to happy reminiscing, to days when I’ll inevitably be feeling really down. But I reckon even when I’m 50-odd with 8 dogs and a Rolls Royce and someone asks me what I’m doing with my life, I’ll probably still answer “I’m a student at the University of Nottingham”.
Eleanor Wright
Graphic & Page Design by Beth Dunnett
