The best lessons in life come from unexpected experiences
- 30 janv. 2015
- 4 min de lecture
First year students, senior students or even people who graduated more than 15 years ago will all tell you the same thing, university will be one of the best thing in your life, but it is also the experience that teaches so much to each of us, and not just during lectures.
Welcome to the real life
You will grow and will not realise it until you compare yourself to the old you in high school; growing is mandatory, you can’t call Mommy and Daddy every 30 seconds because you can’t find your socks, because your laundry isn’t done or because you are too lazy/tired to cook; all these things that your parents might have done for you all these years, now you have to do them all by yourself. Easy daily tasks are not as easy as they seem for those who are not prepared, cooking, doing your dishes after E.V.E.R.Y single meal, doing your laundry, keeping your room clean, getting up in the morning, going grocery shopping, paying for all your bills… And the list is long, and even if all those things seem pretty easy, you will still have to learn it in the first weeks and months of uni. In that way you grow up because you become more independent and you do your first steps towards the mysterious things that is called Adulthood.
… Don’t worry you’ll find ways to make it easier, eating straight from the pan, and food delivery are life saviours…
Discipline? Nah, Procrastination here I come.
One of the big thing of university is the freedom, no more parents around, no more rules, curfew, limits to eat, drink, sleep. All of that disappear overnight and at that crucial moment, you feel like you can test everything and most particularly test your limits. As far as they are, you are still going to try and reach them. That freedom is the reason that push students to skip class, eat dinner at 3am, drink until they can’t even reach their bed and decide to sleep in the hallway, spending all they money in the first weeks, waiting until 24hours before the deadline to decide to start essays. All of that is normal and it will later lead you to learning to be disciplined, to know when to sleep to attempt a wake up for 9am lectures, to manage your budget in a way that you can survive an entire semester without starving in the last month…
Welcome to your education of cultures.
You will learn about yourself, but you will also learn so much about the world; you might have gone to a school where everyone comes from the same background, don’t expect that in uni. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, and everyone has had different life experience but it doesn’t mean that you love these people less. It’s okay not to know everything about a culture, a religion or a country; people are most likely to teach you about it, and you might even become an expert in South African expressions, or Indian dresses. You will make so many friends from different areas and worlds, and you will realise that it doesn’t matter in the least bit. In the contrary, you’ll soon learn to embrace it and you might even find yourself with a number of friends from every country, every possible course, religion.
Looking for another home? You came to the right place
When you live in accommodation, you will soon realise that each one of us has felt homesick at some point, even
if no one actually admit it. You might miss your family, your friends or even your dog or your city, but as soon as you reach home, you will realise that you miss uni. At that moment you reach a point of no return; home is not only one place, it is now two. It is a really weird feeling, because if you are like me, you have two different worlds at two different places and, as much as you want teleportation to exist, you have to live with this feeling. Don’t worry about this feeling, most students feel it, and it teaches you one important life lesson, wherever you are, in your home town or with your friends at uni, you’ll begin to appreciate both places for what they can bring you.
I won’t deny that these are life lessons, and that none of it is teaches in any classes; however you will also realise that during this experience you will learn really random stuff. But I can promise you that all these skills, useless for the rest of the world, will help you survive in the wild world that is university:
-You will be able to survive without food in your cupboards
-You will learn to never EVER refuse free food
-You will learn the importance of naps, and wonder why you hated them as a kid
-You will learn how to stay up all night and function with no sleep the next day
-You will realise how hard it is to attend your 9ams, even if your entire schooling you had to attend 8ams and it wasn’t that big of a deal
-You will soon realise that the security will come to your flat, it can be for a huge party but it can also be because you’re breathing too loudly
-You will find true friendship in the people that bring you back home after a wild night
-You might think you were weird in high school, but I promise that you will find people as weird as you here.
-You will be able to speak the weirdest slang and expressions alive
-You will be able to sleep everywhere, anywhere, with the loudest music or shouting next to you; nothing can deprive you anymore.
-You will be able to sing and dance along particular songs and only your group of friends can understand that.
- Cooking pizza with bread, tomato sauce and cheese will become a common practice.
-You will meet all kind of people, to the sweetest person alive, to the weirdest ones
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