Hello,

SO, my time at university is over. There is nothing more I can do. I’m fairly certain about the degree classification I’ll be receiving, blighted by two years of diabolical Syntax results dragging everything else down, but I’m happy with it.

The final presentations took place yesterday, including mine. I HATE public speaking, so I was pretty concerned that I’d stand up and go blank. Fortunately it didn’t happen, and bar some bizarre statements I didn’t intend to make (‘The Yorkshire accent is average at worst’, WHAT) it went fairly smoothly. In fact I emailed today to find out what mark I’d been given and it was a nice surprise considering it’s such a weighty part of the year, all things considered. Everyone did really well, I thought. There are very few people who are happy to stand up and have all eyes on them while they talk about their own work, but we all pulled it off.

Then we went to celebrate by looking for ANY OF THE UNI BARS THAT WERE OPEN. We ended up at ULU, which I never really went to at all, and we all had an acceptable number of drinks to celebrate the end of the previous three years. It was so nice to spend time with everyone again, as the next time we’re all together will be at graduation at the end of August.

I feel very strange about finishing uni. On the train on the way back from London I was almost quite sad about it. I won’t miss the insane workload or the stress or the crushing blow of another terrible result (Syntax, I’m looking at you). I will REALLY miss the people though, as my coursemates in particular are great. The group of us who started the course back in 2010 has diminished greatly, so there are relatively few of us who have survived the degree, but if it wasn’t for my coursemates it would’ve been so so easy and tempting to give it up.

There are so many mixed thoughts about leaving uni. There’s the relief, but then the ‘what the hell happens now?’ It’s so easy to drift from school to sixth form to uni, but now I feel like I’m just drifting. It’s not that my life lacks structure or anything, as clearly that isn’t the case as I work more than full time what with all the freelance bits and pieces i do. But it’s more the sense of… what am I striving for now? There is no real end goal. It feels like my life is in sandbox mode. I suppose this is what real life feels like. It’s all just little short term goals, but what’s the main thing I’m supposed to be achieving now?

This is a terrifying new chapter. I’m genuinely scared. I would hate to go back into education now, and it’s not like I’m going to view the uni experience through rose-tinted glasses, but this is the weirdest feeling. I think we probably all feel this way right now. It’s like we’ve been released from captivity into the wild and the freedom is too much to handle. Nobody teaches you how to handle real life.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long evening with no real commitments stretched out in front of me.

Kayleigh