<N.B. From the outset I would like to stress that I was studying "BSc (Joint Hons) in Human Geography". This entailed two Geography modules and a mixture of "anything relevant". I'm not joking. I should probably stop writing this right now, due to the pointlessness of this degree, but I'm in a ranty mood)>
First of all, I just didn't like it. My old dad used to say "if you don't enjoy something you should give it up". So I did. From my first day at Queen's University I detested it. Not the building. You know I love that building. It's, well, the rest of it to be honest.
My fellow students, for example. Mostly in their late teens, whose schools/parents filled their heads with bogus aspirations they couldn't possible meet with a third class honours degree in Human Geography. I guarantee you that not one of them chose the same course as me of their own free will. Like me they were probably all bullied into it by their school where FAILURE (i.e. Belfast or Lisburn Tec) WAS NOT AN OPTION. I know that when Queen's enrolled me, Friends' School Lisburn had another statistic added to their "going to uni" list. I had no idea that there was even a college in Belfast until ten minutes after I enrolled at university; only when Seanna AND Chris (McCorry...see his irritating MYSPACE profile for anything you need to know) told me they were both going there did I find out. I felt a right idiot. That summer, I thought nothing of it until I actually got there. And boy, was I disappointed with the myth of university.
Stuck in a room with unwashed, unshaven idiots who set up home in and around the university area for 30% of the money they will earn in the Real World, all carrying on as if this [lecture] was the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Idiots!
It only really hits home whenever you are put in groups with them. After three weeks, they're as bewildered as you. It actually turned out I was the only one in the group who knew what was going on, as the others had spent their weekend getting wazzed on the government's money.
This brings me on nicely to student debt (hows that for a link? QUB would be so proud of me...). How many news stories have there been where a student in his early twenties has topped himself due to the crippling strain of student debt? Well, I've read three. And that's three more than there should have been. You see, in the good ol' days (when my dad went to uni, i.e. the early 80s) students were entered into university on a grant - yes, they paid for YOU. Going to university was for the straight-A students - a noble thing - and you could study things that would really help you in later life (medicine, law, really useful stuff).
Now it's for every Tom, Dick and Pete who had the blinkers put on them by their socially acceptable Grammar School. These blinkers blocked you from seeing the truth. Not going to uni isn't failure - I know that now. It's common bloody sense, especially if you're doing something stupid like Human Geography. But no, Friends' School Lisburn lied to me. They promised me a dream in going to uni which is all bollocks. How many university graduates now do the photocopying at PriceWaterhouseCoopers? And how many work in call centres? With jobs like these, as well as a 15 grand student debt, you can see why death would be a more acceptable option.
A lot of people I would talk to (friends, relatives, church folk) would ask me, "Pete, what are you going to do with Human Geography?" They were right. They were genuinely interested in what I wanted to do with my degree, but I took their question in a different light. I saw it in the "what the hell are you doing Human Geography for??" context. What did I want it for? I didn't want to do photocopying for some suits and I sure as hell didn't want to work in Telemarketing.
Luckily, I left QUB with a clean financial slate. I owe Her Maj absolutely nothing for my education. A bloke I auditioned for The Weakest Link said that I should be on the news for this. How I laughed. Sure, I'm working for slightly more than minimum wage in a bookshop and stationers, but hey - I'm debt free (with the exception of my MasterCard bill).
And now I have ran out of space on this page. I haven't even got to the lecturers or the bleakness of life at uni yet. Click THESE THREE WORDS to see the next part of my blog where I include these mini evils.