I recently graduated from University and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. While I may miss the familiarity of student life, there are certainly things I am happy to leave behind. Here are 15 things I certainly will not miss about college:
1. Waiting 20 minutes in line for coffee.
We all know how it goes. You aren’t a morning person and you probably live on caffeine. Unfortunately, so does everyone else, so the lineup is always out the door. The contemplation to be 15 minutes late for class or not is real. Coffee always wins.
2. Walking home on a Friday night with drunk people everywhere.
Stupid drunk people with their shirts off, ray bans and snapbacks, hollering at you and cat calling you when you’re just trying to get home safely. You might have been a partier, but as the years go by, those days get further and further behind you.
3. The stress of having a million assignments and readings due at once.
Professors all set their due dates around the same time. Right before the break, or right before the final exam. You would think we would have time management down by now, but sadly we don’t; and we still write it up at the last-minute.
4. Cramming for an exam.
Sometimes we just don’t have the time. Sometimes you have multiple exams in one day and it feels impossible to be prepared. You start to lose it. You read the entire course material the night before and somehow still whip out a 75%.
5. Writing a million words per second to get all the notes down.
Profs whip through power point slides and other materials faster than the speed of light. SLOW DOWN. You find yourself struggling to get it all down and sometimes even peeking at the person’s notes beside you only to get an awkward glare from them. Assholes.
6. Dodging people in the hallways to get to where you need to go.
Your agility is quite impressive by your third or fourth year. The halls are swamped with people, and you just don’t have time for the “excuse me, sorry, excuse me” bullshit. Move or I will move you.
7. Professors who live to make your life hard.
Some Professors give you the “in my day we didn’t have laptops and powerpoints,” and they make it their mission to make your life as hard as theirs was. This is frustrating. But, we have the last laugh when course reviews come around mwahahah and lest we forget about ratemyprofessor.com.
8. Spending your whole paycheck on lunch.
Oh you want to buy lunch on campus? Well honey, you got another thing coming. Unless you want to spend 12 dollars on a salad, stick to making food at home. Let’s be honest, no one ever does except for the gym rats who do ‘meal prep’ with their stupid chocolate protein shakes, so you end up taking a packet of ramen with you like the poor unfortunate soul that you are.
9. Tuition fees.
Need I say more? How on earth are we to start putting money away for our future when tuition fees have skyrocketed. Many students don’t get enough aid from the government and have to work full-time on top of going to school. I guess i’ll just live in a shack that’s cool.
10. Having your parents grill you about money.
What the hell do they know anyway. They grew up in the most lucrative economy ever, and they turned it to shit for us AND THEN THEY GRILL US ABOUT OUR CHOICES. I work my ass off, and sometimes I need a break…or five. But instead of saying any of the things you’re thinking, you just sit there and take it, because you don’t want to add fuel to the fire…plus you’re hoping they will give you a twenty after they’ve calmed down.
11. Mental breakdowns and questioning your entire existence.
“There are no jobs in your field,” said every older person ever. While sometimes I wonder what the hell someone is going to do with a History degree, most of us are trying to get somewhere someday. It is so disheartening to know we might be shit out luck no matter how well we do in school.
12. Rushing to get to class on time.
Whose brilliant idea was only having a 5 minute break in between classes anyway. Sure, let me just get from one end of campus to the next, squeeze in a smoke and coffee? Not likely. My smoker lungs require a steady brisk walk at most thank you very much. My campus was average size, but some people have classes on the other side of town; poor poor students. I feel for you.
13. Calculating what you need on the final to pass the course.
We’ve all done this. Despite being in liberal arts, I’ve become a whizz at using a calculator to determine how average I have to be to pass. I’m not trying to be Albert Einstein, it was a mistake taking “Philosophy of Logic”, words should not become numerical equations, please for the love of god let me pass.
14. The devastation of not saving your essay and your computer crashing.
We’ve all been there. You just spent 10 hours on your paper, and you’re proud of it. You’re finishing up your conclusion and BAM, computer crashes. You panic, asking everyone including the cat how to get it back. Literally the last thing you want to hear is “why didn’t you save it” but somehow that’s ALWAYS the person’s first reaction, and you want to strangle them.
15. Once you graduate you feel proud, but also that sinking realization that you went from student to unemployed.
You get your degree, 5 those fancy letters next to your name that is SUPPOSED to give you a leg up towards a career. Not so much. Now you have to work for your money, and all of a sudden student loans become more appealing.
College was a time of major emotional distress. Some days you felt so strong and confident, and other days you felt like the floor was falling from beneath you. Even though the days of being piss drunk at a club downtown were glorious, there are always those parts about college that weren’t as great that we’re happy we left behind!
