Why I didn’t go to university…

On A-level results day I was so so nervous about my results. I had missed a significant amount of the last year due to my mental illness and did not in the slightest feel prepared for my exams. But to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, I achieved ABB in biology, chemistry and physics respectfully. I gained a place to Southampton uni to study biology. Southampton is one of the top 1% of universities in the world and is part of the Russell Group (a group of the leading universities in the UK). This was an incredible achievement and something I had worked pretty much my whole life to achieve. And yet I didn’t go. In this blog I hope to explain why I didn’t go to university and why it was actually one of the best decisions I have made.

1. Stress at the time

So I know in the intro I did say I didn’t go to university but I actually did…. for less than half a day. Yes, that’s right. I hauled all of my stuff up to my fourth floor room (there was no lift), and didn’t even make it to the end of the day. My anxiety and depression took over and I got to a place that I hadn’t been in for months. I tried to go back another time for a course induction but it just wasn’t going to work. Southampton is the closest city to where I live, but the move and returning to education was just too much.

I was also very unfortunate to have a really bad falling out with one of my best friends at the time, almost exactly a week before I moved in. I felt used in a way that I never have before and I still haven’t fully recovered from the events that took place. The person in question is no longer a part of my life and I honestly think that this is for the better. Carrying on the friendship would’ve been toxic for me and I would rather have happy memories than a bitter present, trying to make a friendship work that clearly isn’t going to.

2. Stress of education

In England, you sit GCSE exams at age 16 and A-levels at age 18. In the end, I ended up doing 14 GCSEs (one at the same time as my A levels) and as I mentioned above, 3 A levels. I got very acceptable grades in both of these sets of exams but it definitely wasn’t without trouble. My mental health greatly deteriorated at major points of both my GCSEs and my A levels. I was missing whole topics at A level and considering we only finished the content with 2 lessons left in one subject (and not many more in the others), it was extremely hard to catch up. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to exams; however, I’m not that intellectually clever. Fair enough I have always done okay academically but this has required an extreme amount of revision. I would leave for college at around 8:10am and get back at around 5 if I managed a full day. I would then eat dinner and watch a little bit of TV until around 6pm when I would go upstairs and revise for around 3 and a half hours. I would also revise for around 4 hours each day on the weekend, and any free periods at college. I DIDN’T HAVE A LIFE.

The stress of exams for me just didn’t seem worth it. At uni, you have exams twice a year- no thank you! I know mates that have sat one set of exams and have already found it so difficult and I don’t think I could go back to be categorized based on how well I did on exams.

I hope to write more about my experiences in education in future blogs (I have so much I could write about there is no way it is all going to fit into one blog).

3. Money

Uni is one expensive place to be. Tuition is £9250 a year, my rent was £8000 a year and any loans you get charged 6% interest on. I couldn’t even pay half my rent with the loan I was given. I chose a room with its own kitchen and bathroom due to my issues with my emetophobia (see my last blog). This room was very expensive for what it was so my parents were having to contribute a very large amount of money towards it. And this loan is meant to be for my rent, food, textbooks and general living costs. It was a bit ridiculous to say the least. And so with me hardly being able to pay for anything, I was still going to leave university with over £40,000 worth of debt, and no guarantee of a job. Quite a lot of people don’t use their degrees and I do not want to pay that much money for 3 years of stress and a degree that I won’t even use.

4. Changes in my mindset

I had been in education my entire life until I decided not to go to uni. This was a lifetime of teachers brainwashing me into thinking that education is the only way, and that your grades should define you as a person. Taking a break from education, I realize how much bulls**t this was. I had never taken the chance to find what I want to do in life as I was always too busy trying to get decent grades. On reflection, I realized how much I love helping other people, so I want to focus on this more than focus on exams. Whether this will end up being my career path or not, I don’t know, but I definitely want to focus more on helping other people (hence why I started this blog 🙂 )

I also needed the time to work on my mental health. When my mental health has been bad before, I’ve always been too busy trying to push through exams to really properly work on improving it. I am not working at the moment, but I am working on getting well enough so that I can work. I am finding hobbies such as drawing, which I love, and really working on finding who I am instead of trying to become who the system wants me to be.

I am not saying that university is a bad thing- I know so many people who are having an amazing time at uni. It just wasn’t for me. I had never felt comfortable enough to take a step away from education and pursue something meaningful to me until my mental illness pushed me away from one of the most toxic things I think I will ever experience in my life. Education was so harmful for me, and taking a step away from it has taught me more than I could ever learn in a classroom.

Thank you for reading my blog! It really means a lot to me.
Zoe x