The Highs of University (vs. School) Life

Whilst I have spoken about the highs of my time at university, they often relate directly to my course. However, coming into my 2nd year I have begun to appreciate the several positives that some with being a university student in general. Having spoken a lot on my blog about the challenges that come with being a student, it's only about time that I do a whole post dedicated to the other side! This will also be sort of a university vs. school post as well.

The one thing that I love about university, is that it allows you to meet your own expectations without being compared against other people. Of course, you're still going to end up making comparisons and need to meet expectations set by your department,t but your work is down to your own effort and individual performance. Mark schemes are standardised and independently applied to your work. They don't change depending on the outcomes of your peers as they do at school. Your lecturers focus on what you can do as an individual and acknowledge that everyone is working against different strengths and weaknesses so there is no shame in being bad at something that someone else is doing amazingly well at.

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Another thing which I have so much appreciation for is the mutual level of respect between the staff and students. Being at school there was a very clear line of authority and you weren't allowed to give your opinions or 'talk back' without being punished, even when it was a reasonable comment to make. Coming to university from school where they made lecturers sound like such scary people, I was so nervous about being able to speak to my lecturers if I ever needed to. Despite having achieved their PhD and/ or professorships all my lecturers are happy for you to simply call them by their names. Some even explicitly told us to not address them by 'professor' or 'dr'. They don't treat you like you're inferior to them and respect you as any other individual they come across. It's wonderful to just be able to have an honest conversation with them without being afraid of saying something that I'm not allowed to. They are also extremely open to constructive feedback about their classes or the department in general.

What makes it easier to be able to speak to my personal tutor, another academic, or someone from the admin team about personal circumstances if need be is that confidentiality actually exists. At school the concept doesn't even seem to mean anything. One thing that frustrated me so much about school was that one thing happens or you say something to a teacher and suddenly the whole school knows your business when there's absolutely no need. Unless there is a need to for your safety, anything you say in your tutor's office, to another member of staff in your department or the university stays as a private conversation between you and them. If they feel like they may have to tell someone else, they will probably let you know. Unless they are concerned about you for some reason, they aren't going to pry into your personal life either. You can tell them as much or a little as you need to. As a result, I've learned to be more open. It has allowed me to re-establish some trust and understanding of what it means to actually have a safe-space.

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Similarly, you have greater right to privacy. I can choose to keep aspects of my life private and no one can force me to tell them something that I don't want others to know. Not having to tell anyone every single thing I'm doing at every moment, my future career goals (really despise this particular question) or my grades is great. Personally, it places less external pressure on me considering that I give myself enough of that and it forces me to have more confidence in my own decisions without others giving their unsolicited advice. If people don't like that, they're just going to have to learn that you have a right to keep things to yourself and that it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

With this extra freedom, you don't need permission to do anything. This could end up being a bad thing, but as long as you be responsible, it will be fine! This so many mini points to this point. For the most part people advise here, not demand or push you into a certain direction. More on this in the next point. If I were to have a blog like this when I was in secondary school, every single one of my posts would have been read and tracked and that definitely wouldn't have allowed me to be open about my experiences as I try to be here. Obviously, there are still things to be mindful of, but I've never had to stop a think about whether a minor sentence in a post will have a negative impact on my experience. In my case, everything you did at secondary school was monitored whether it was their business or not. This is why I decided to start a blog at university rather than beforehand. Additionally, I know that clothing and hairstyles are a large part of some peoples' identities and it's never been an issue to dress the way you want to and to wear what you want. No one even takes any notice (unless you happen to be wearing those blinding neon colours or turn up to lectures in your pyjamas - something I am yet to witness!).

Returning to the first point above, I think that access to opportunities within the university is a whole lot more open to some extent. I spoke about this in this post but in summary there's no one telling your that you're not good enough to do something that you would like to have a go at. In comparison, I found in in secondary schools if you were assumed to not be good enough to complete the task, you wouldn't be given the opportunity. It was always the same people being called out to take on certain roles in the school. Of course, that's not always the case but it is generally an issue. At university, no one knows you so they're going to give you a chance. Most of the time wanting to give up your time and effort is really appreciated, whether you are volunteering, working as a student ambassador, a student blogger, or carrying out one-off roles. Although there may still be somewhat of an application process at times, it's not going to carry so much bias as it did in school.

In terms of the academic side, I believe that there are more practical applications (than in school anyway). By  this, I mean practical as in hands-on but also completing work which is valid to the field that is being studied. I've written so many research reports, completed data analysis and collection and critical reviews of research articles. It's extremely research intensive which is an inherent part of psychology. I've done a lot of active learning (rather than passive learning) on this front. Having said that, essays still carry way too much weighting in my opinion, but I guess this depends on the specific course as some fields of work are pretty much essay based. Although, I have to say that they are great at helping you to make clear, concise and rational arguments and lines of support rather than just splurging everything you know for the sake of it. They are really challenging, in the right way.

Furthermore, there is no set specification which we all really struggled with to begin with because we have always been told what we have to know and that everything else is irrelevant. Most of the time everything else is very much relevant but if you asked a teacher about a wider aspect of content that you had been learning, the response was usually vague followed by something along the lines of "you won't need to know that for the exam so it's not important". Having such an open curriculum is amazing as it gives you the opportunity to widen your knowledge beyond class content. You can be flexible and adapt the content to suit your individual interests and do further reading that isn't going to bore the mind out of you.

You are (hopefully) on a course that you enjoy and have the motivation to go to class and do further research on. You're still going to have to do some stuff that you don't particularly want to (i.e.: core modules and assessment that you think are pointless) but on the whole, you have more choice and you won't feel like you're studying something for the sake of it. You'll want to do well for yourself rather than because you need to pass, although that fear of failure doesn't ever fade!

Finally, No one knows who you are. In my town, of you go out (unless you jump onto a train) there's only really one place you can go. When you're at university there's so many people around that it's unlikely that you're going to bump into someone who knows you. You can go out without feeling uneasy about bumping into someone who you would really rather not. You can walk around the university without people judging you because they have no clue who you are and probably aren't even taking any notice. If you want to start a new, you can!

There are so many restrictions that schools are under that universities aren't and can be seen in several of the points that I have mentioned. So, university isn't all that bad even amongst the endless challenges!

What's your favourite part of university life?