An Abandoned Degree Is A Calamity

Today marks a year since I left university. Here is the story of the short time I spent there, and everything I've learnt since.

Disclaimer: I am in no way against further education! This is entirely based on personal experience and I just hope to offer support and consolation for anyone who has gone through/is going through something similar.

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Just over a year ago I had all of my things packed up in boxes and bin liners, sitting quietly in my kitchen as I had, what I thought would be, my last night in the room I’d grown up in since the age of 5. I remember the build up to leaving - every time I was reminded of the upcoming milestone I pushed the thought deep down like one does with a bad memory or regret. It’s ironic and upsetting to me that a year later I’m doing the same thing with this exact story.

It only occurred to me recently, when I was looking back on that time, that fear is not necessarily the predominant reaction someone should have to a ‘new beginning’…

Sure, so many people I know were terrified to leave at first, and now they’re off having the time of their lives. But they all spoke about university with this nervous yet excited anticipation when we were leaving sixth form, and I can’t recall a time I once felt the same.

I realise now, a year since, as a (somewhat more mature) 20 year old, that I was only taking the ‘further education’ path because everyone else was doing so. What felt like an individual choice turned out to be influence. But of course when you’re back in your hometown after a week, with all your stuff dumped in your now anaemic-looking childhood bedroom, and no fallback plans for the near future, you don’t have as much clarity.

Moving Day:

My mum had driven us 3 hours door to door. I spent the entire journey playing music and doing anything but addressing the dreaded topic at hand. I had made jokes over the past few months when my family and I would snap at one another about emptying the dishwasher or cleaning the kitchen: ‘I can’t wait to live far far away’ I would tease. In actual fact, my eyes were teary the whole way there, and I know this is completely natural, but I had assumed things would look up a few days in.

Once I’d met my flat mates and everything had been hauled upstairs, I left my mum to organise my room while I went to an induction meeting. I remember being sat with people who immediately reminded me of old friends, wanting to chat and share TikToks over the speeches… There was zero respect or concern for anyone else in the room, and it made me feel uneasy, because I was such people pleaser at the time I would’ve changed myself completely just to be a part of a group. Looking back I was putting so much pressure on myself to make relationships work; trying to pretend I was interested in nights out and perpetual drinking just so I had ‘people’. This was because I knew I had barely any friends to fall back on at home…

I am unashamed to say now that if I have a bad day, or a bad interaction with somebody, I find solace in returning to the home I share with my family. I think I’m someone who needs that; not all of us are, and that’s absolutely okay. There are definitely times I feel I would thrive having my own space, but I am super family oriented. Because not a lot of people my age are, I assumed this was something to put an end to…

My mum didn’t leave the day I arrived - I’m still uncertain if this arrangement was beneficial or not. We agreed she would stay in a local hotel the first night. Even knowing that she was 5 minutes drive away, I had a panic attack the moment she left. I’m not sure why I felt I had to put on a brave face; it’s completely normal to get upset when your family leaves, but holding it in all day meant it hurt tenfold once I was alone.

It was dark out; deadly quiet, and I kept looking at my bed thinking ‘how the hell am I supposed to sleep here? I don’t belong here.’ I had no idea how to decipher the natural anxieties of moving away, from the overwhelming panic taking over. I thought maybe it’d last just for that night.

I woke up early for another induction. I distinctly remember opening my eyes as if moving here was just a dream, assuming I was home. Soon enough, once my vision adjusted, I began to cry again... I don’t mention this for sympathy, I promise, but because this was the morning I think things crossed the line from normal to unhealthy. When I cry now, as a 20 year old, I feel it. If I spiral or feel deeply sensitive, I’m unapologetic, because when I think about those 19 year old tears, they were so lifeless it was as if I wasn’t there at all. I didn’t feel my flat-mates would understand if I went down to the kitchen and tried to talk about it. Everyone was so delighted to be free from their parents; so excited for their first night out… I was too frightened to face anyone and too upset to eat, so I stayed in my room for hours until I had to leave for class.

Detachment:

The ‘lifeless’ dehumanisation I was explaining before became sort of a default. I remember it from college - the feeling of crossing a road or ending up in another class and thinking ‘I don’t remember how I got here.’ The only way I can explain it properly is that it’s as if you’re on autopilot, running on zero energy or enthusiasm for life, leaving it up to your legs to take you to the place you’re meant to go. I shrunk so far inside myself it was dangerous.

The only genuine communication I’d have with anyone was over text with my parents, and even my messages began to emit traits of lifelessness. My mum, being the hero she is, decided to stay another night, hoping I would suddenly adjust by my third day. That morning, I had no commitments (I discovered I’d only be getting two days of class a week?!), so she picked me up and drove me for coffee. I sat in the passenger seat feeling wounded somehow, like I was being briefly rescued, but it wouldn't last. We sat in a road-side Costa for 2 hours and I, someone who hates crying in public, couldn’t stop the same emotionless tears from falling yet again. Even though she was right in front of me, I felt so far gone. It was down to me to decide if this would work out, and I so badly wanted it to that I’d basically come to terms with the fact that she’d have to leave me here. Tables of elderly people eyeballed me in the cafe until my mum decided we should head to her hotel so I could have a change of scenery. I wondered if I was doing the right thing, remaining glued to my mother’s side while everybody was out at Freshers socials partying… I couldn’t bare the thought of her going home because I was frightened of what might happen to me.

My biggest memory of all 9 days was such a pivotal moment I wrote a song based on it. It’s called Dual Carriageway.

I was walking from campus to the local store on my own. I hadn’t been able to eat the past few days I’d been there because of anxiety, and was essentially running on zero battery. My Google Maps was on the wrong setting and took me on this long pedestrian walkway past a huge road. I thought ‘I could pass out, right here, in the middle of nowhere, and nobody would know.’ ‘I’m close enough to the road that something could happen…’ I felt so devoid of life and thought and feeling. It made me realise that those are the moments when people do irreparable things, because all conscious thought is gone. It was dangerous, and I’m so glad nothing happened in that moment. Writing lyrics about it gave me so much closure on the subject, because, while I wish one-year-ago-me didn’t have to endure those dark thoughts, I was able to create art out of something that once felt joyless. I encourage everyone as an exercise to try and do the same, it can be so healing.

This is a vulnerable song about the complications of this time, coming back home and missing old friends. I’ve left some lyrics below:

As you were, man, as you wish

I tried space, enough of it

Halfway dead, dual carriageway

So I’m alright just wheeling it

And though it won’t

Pay the bills

I get rich off

Much cheaper thrills

The record’s on

My brother smiles

‘You’re just as welcome here as you always were, child’

Solution:

It was around the Friday I remember sending a voice note to my parents finally divulging the truth. I hadn’t stopped thinking about going home since the moment I’d arrived, but it had only felt like every other time I tried something new; a desperate urge to give up immediately. One of the most difficult things in life to accost is when you’ve reached a point where you can’t go on, because in actual fact, humans could go on and on, making something work until the day they die. It was more a choice I was making for the sake of my happiness, so that I didn’t have to feel that simply surviving was a privilege. So I could live instead.

But there is one distinct time I remember thinking ‘maybe I could be happy here…’

Just before all this, a group of girls had invited me out to the local cinema to see ‘A Haunting In Venice’. It was late in the evening when we made our way there to meet one of the girls’ parents and sister. We took up a row in this old theatre-to-cinema renovated building, and though I remember feeling physically and emotionally exhausted from the week so far, I felt that maybe, if I had to, I could do this. ‘Maybe these will be my people’.

The problem was, I didn’t have to do this; I didn’t have to do anything… I was lucky enough to have parents who had made that very clear. Again, it was that voice in me that was not my own; just a product of influence. I didn’t want to be reaching for reasons to stay somewhere expensive and miserable, there was no point. Eventually, this became a deciding factor, because what was I getting here that I couldn’t get back home? I was in fact swaying the opposite way; losing it all.

Coming Back:

What was meant to be an emotional, movie-like reunion with my mum ended up being a shit show. I had set an alarm to meet her early outside my flat, and ended up sleeping through it somehow, which I’ve never done a day in my life… It seemed universal energy was not on my side that morning. I called her to apologise - she’d tried to reach me several times and was now waiting in the local park cafe until I woke up, already stressed out of her mind since she’d had to leave me in the state I’d been in a few days prior.

We stood in my now empty room after some odd and uncomfortable conversations with staff and students about my departure. I was so incredibly relived she was there, but so disappointed in myself and that this idealised dream I’d once had didn't pan out. But the plan hadn’t failed me the moment I’d arrived; it had already failed months before when I got that sinking feeling at the thought of moving there.

I can recall getting home late afternoon and having this conflicted sense of relief, and utter depersonalisation. I felt like my home was no longer my own - I wasn’t supposed to be there. My family had already made upcoming plans that didn’t have me in them. There was an unfamiliar air to the house, like it had prepared itself to see less of me, and now I was too far gone to get back to being a part of it all. I went upstairs to my cold, now empty room, and felt like a ghost. I cried out in the hallway because the room felt like somebody else’s, and in no way comforting or familiar enough a space to get upset in.

In all of 9 days, I had become completely different. My conundrum was: when I had arrived at university, I couldn’t connect with a single person. It felt like I’d left my personality back at home; maybe at the door when I said goodbye to everyone. Now, I was home; safe again, and my personality wasn’t here. I thought maybe I’d left another part of me back there, at that school…

I landed on imagining little pieces of me were broken up and scattered across that 3 hour drive between the two, and it left me feeling like a body; an outline, not a person.

The little time I spent at uni often amuses people, because most students (if they do ever choose to leave) give it at least a year or so. I knew this was going to be a difficult conversation to have with so many people, and I loathed the idea of having to recount it all. People crack a laugh when I tell it now - “you went for nine days?” This is where we come to the ‘what I’ve learned since’ portion of the story. I recently did a course where a teacher told us that when you get to 30, you stop caring so much. I recall hearing it and thinking ‘thank God’, because all I seem to do is listen to what people have to say and live my life according to those values. But since everything that has come of my short and not so sweet experience of uni, I have somehow, along the way, learnt to care a lot less about things. I’m still 10 years away from 30, but for where I am now, I couldn’t be more grateful. Besides, still caring a little what people think of you is totally normal, and gives you a good balance of well deserved selfishness and selflessness. If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have taken that course; I wouldn’t have met my new friends; I wouldn’t have experienced the emotional, beautiful newfound feelings I’ve had lately. And I’d be poorer than you can fathom.

This is for anybody who is having similar feelings about school, no matter your age or level; if it’s a degree or college or secondary school…

Once you’ve left, you realise that you’ve been living a sheltered life. School can be brutal, but also in a way, a shielded little planet that is only putting off your experience of the real world. All of your feelings, negative or otherwise, are valid. No teacher or parent should be allowed to make you feel invaluable because you are one of the few who want to brave actuality and start a new chapter.

If you are doubting whether further education is the right route for you, block out all the noise and make that decision for yourself. And even if you do end up enrolling just to leave 9 days later, at least you’ve witnessed first hand what you won’t be missing…