Growing Strong
on feeling stupid by Ellie Wilson University is not for poor people. It is not for survivors of sexual violence. It is not for the neurodivergent, mentally ill, or disabled. This isn’t a radical claim; universities are known to be elitist, inaccessible, and unaccommodating. We know this. Or do we really? I’ve participated in and lead campaigns as a Women’s Officer and member of WoCo for years on how hard it is to continue to study and graduate as a survivor of sexual violence, especially on campus. I know these issues inside out on paper. I’ve read the data, I’ve heard strangers’ stories. But it was different when it happened to me. I looked around, and didn’t see the same empathy for these issues day to day. Support for these issues didn’t seem to make it from the abstract into personal praxis for others like it did for me. People look at you differently here when you admit that, rather than choosing to revel in the joyful whimsy and spontaneity of deferring by choice, you’ve instead been ungracefully dumped out of your degree. “I’ve chosen to pause my studies and work instead” is the kindest euphemism I’ve found to avoid the alltoo-frequent conversation about my degree pathway that ultimately leads to uncomfortable pity, if not visible disdain. I couldn’t help but notice that after friends of mine at this university found out that I had been suspended and wasn’t quietly thriving like the rest of them, they interacted with me differently. Sometimes I wonder if they think I’m just too dumb to keep up. Sometimes I think the same. But maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world if, even if I used to be able to, I can’t really keep up with uni the way I wish I could. Maybe it’s just not for me. Maybe it is, and the fact that I can’t seem to get access to a psychiatrist that isn’t awful might actually be having a negative impact on my quality of life, and I could perhaps be doing much better with a proper diagnosis, treatment plan, and better medical support for chronic health issues. The reason I was so drawn to this collective’s work was because it was one of the first groups I saw actually standing up publicly for survivors of sexual violence on campus after years of feeling alone in my experiences. I sometimes wonder if, had I not faced sexual violence while at uni, and perhaps if I’d also gotten the support I needed earlier, if I might have kept up a little better over the years. Not only is it okay, but it is very common to struggle at university. As a litany of university campaigns will tell you, the university is an incredibly hostile environment that makes getting an education really hard if you’re not incredibly well off and wellsuited to the learning style. If it’s an inevitable condition of the corporatised neoliberal university, why are people attuned to this so ill-prepared to handle it in their personal spheres?
The idea that “uni isn’t for everyone” is a commonplace saying, but it feels more often like a veiled insult at people who struggle or choose to opt out of the system than an offering of genuine support and understanding, or of a true belief in the value of other forms of learning and of career paths not involving university qualifications. If uni is known to be harder for some than for others, then why is every person who leaves uni treated so similarly? There are a few descriptors typically tied to dropouts: words like lazy, stupid, and undisciplined come to mind. It doesn’t really matter why it is that you dropped out, or how “legitimate” the barriers were to you continuing your studies. The prevailing archetype of a dropout has no nuance, even among many who pride themselves on understanding the vast structural problems of the university as an institution. I’ve spent a number of years as a university student, making my first debut at USyd in 2016. In that time, I’ve taken a number of different courses across numerous faculties, and found myself encountering a number of roadblocks throughout. I’ve learned a significant amount while at university, both inside and out of the classroom. I may not walk away with a degree, but I am a very different, much wiser person than I was after I graduated from high school. A lot of the learning that I’ve done has not been within the scope of undergraduate courses I’ve enrolled in. One of the core issues with the increasingly corporatised university is the aggressive peeling back of all supports that enable people to attend university and get anything out of their experience other than their coursework - a lack of affordable student housing, inaccessible funding support, declining campus life, a hostile and increasing security and police presence, and skyrocketing course costs that force people to use all of their spare time to commute and work instead of getting to simply exist as a student and member of the community. There is so much value in what you learn from fellow students, from student organising, from discussions and experiences had without assessment schemes to place a value on them. All I can say is: if you find yourself struggling with uni (like, really struggling); you’re not alone. It’s not because you’re a failure, because you’re stupid, because you’re not enough. University is just really hard. Hard for some in a few-stressfulall-nighters kind of way, hard for others in a way that makes it completely overwhelming and entirely out of one’s grasp. You’re not a failure just because your university has failed to support you or provide what you actually need to thrive. “Real learning” doesn’t start and end within USyd’s sandstone walls, and it’s way past time to genuinely challenge our internalised elitism and devaluation of other forms of knowledge sharing and skill development.
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