I’m going to try and catch up with posting some of my recent articles in Gair Rhydd. This year I’m editing the Debate page of the magazine supplement Quench, and wrote this piece for the Freshers’ Edition, to go alongside a piece arguing the opposite point of view:
If you believe the hype, then the student life is all about daytime television and pasta meals, getting lashed and getting laid, one last fling with childhood lack of responsibility before the big bad world of adulthood. Even some lecturers seem to expect with a nudge and wink that this is how students will live. But how can we sell ourselves so short as to buy in to this myth and continue to peddle it?
It isn’t just student life that is undersold, but adulthood. Growing up is seen as growing dull. Responsibility is seen as a burden to be endured; working life is seen as a hardship rather than a source of satisfaction. Are “adultescents”, people who behave like teenagers well into middle age, any surprise when we have such a low view of adulthood?
Many students seem to see university as the last great chance to embrace childishness; a time to enjoy adult privileges without responsibility. Take sex as an example. I remember once reading some advice to freshers: “get as much sex as you can while you’re young and fit and able to easily get laid“. Never mind about romance or building meaningful relationships that could last for years, even a lifetime, then, just brief and meaningless pleasures.
Don’t settle for cheap thrills. Why not become a volunteer, write for this paper, join a political party, search for love, seek the truth about life, or something else that is a step into the exciting world of adulthood, rather than obsess over childhood cartoons, or have just another piss up?
Most of us know there’s more to studentdom than reality tv, but wouldn’t it be great if the reputation of students, better yet, the expectation of students, wasn’t lazing around but changing the world? Not television but revolution? Not childishness, but taking the adult world by storm?
Have fun as a student, yes, but don’t let the small pleasures of irresponsibility distract you from the far greater joys of growing up. Don’t believe the hype – student life can be so much more!
On a similar note, I’ll just point out an article from Gair Rhydd that I enjoyed recently called Unnecessary Illusions by Jimmy Ashcroft, which argues that “our decadent culture causes us to lose sight of what really matters in life”. Check it out!
