“I’ll be a proud graduate, but I was a disappointed student.”

After nearly four years of higher education, my time at the University of Aberdeen is drawing to an end. I sincerely do feel that it was a good decision to take the plunge and come to Aberdeen. The knowledge gained, the friends made, the countless events experienced and the strong independent mind it has given me have all been worth it.

That being said, during my time here I have found myself having to deal with swings of depression, anxiety, panic attacks and just a general frustration with some of the things here like many of us do get while trying to get a degree.

Firstly, being from the Southern part of the UK I, like many other students, have had to pay tuition fees.  I agree that it is a fair deal since Scottish students would also have to pay should they decide to study in England.

However, on top of this most of us have taken out maintenance loans in order to pay out extortionate rent to Aberdonian lettings agencies and landlords for mould infested flats, who honestly couldn’t care less about our general well-being – it’s almost fashionable in Aberdeen to have a mouldy and damp flat. To not have those, you would be considered posh.

Your expected humble abode.

Just because the city has a booming oil industry does not mean that students can afford the same rent. But landlords know they can charge us the same because if we don’t someone else certainly will. The university should be working closely with the local council in order to put a cap on how much students have to pay.

Unsurprisingly, all of these loans were still not enough for me to support myself. I gratefully accepted some financial support from my parents, and at various periods worked part time in order to get some sort of work, study and leisure balance.

Leisurely studying is a necessity.

Thankfully, though, I am not in the new £9,000 a year generation of tuition fee payers whom I truly feel sorry for, because I always did wonder where my £1,860 went. On average I only had 2-3 hours teaching in my Honours years. If someone could sit down and please explain the economics behind it I’d appreciate it.

As for graduation, we have to pay either £10 even if not attending (you know for like delivery and stuff cause like a piece of card is really heavy) or £45 to graduate in person. But if I’m in debt to the university I won’t be allowed to graduate – this includes a meagre £1 library fine.

Broke? We don’t let the likes of you graduate.

Oh, and don’t forget you have to order your graduation gown through the University’s sub-contracted company Ede & Ravenscroft. For any of you who don’t know who they are, they are probably one of the most expensive and pretentious of all tailors in the UK, located in London’s infamous Saville Row.

In addition, if you want to remember your graduation with some professionally taken photos, you’re going to have to pay at least £50-60 for decent shots.

Finally, our graduation ball split over two nights, is a ridiculous £55 (£5 up from last year as it was cancelled last year because not enough tickets were sold – good job AUSA).

I was initially glad to hear AUSA would be running it since I expected our student-run organisation to have the financial interests of its students at heart, but clearly this isn’t the case.Why  are we being asked to pay £55 for the EXACT same deal we were given at the King’s Ball in March 2014, which was only £35? The organisers say ‘there are many surprises to be had at grad ball’ – like what exactly? A chocolate fountain and a ‘fun’ photo booth similar to the ones provided at the Kings Ball?

For £55, I’d expect a small silver plate with my name on it. I want to know where that extra £20 is going to because surely, if much more people are going, it will be cheaper to rent everything. I didn’t realise staring at people you’ve practically avoided most of your university life would be so expensive – wouldn’t Facebook be the cheaper alternative?

“My god everyone here is such a prick.”

Them telling me it’s for the sentimental value of it all are missing the point – with all of this money being spent to improve oneself for the real world, what has AU actually done to genuinely help us find a graduate job?

This brings me to the Careers Service who are, frankly, useless. I’ve tried since 2^nd year to get them to help me find direction, improve my CV and, gone to get advice on how to ace interviews. What I got on every occasion instead was a lovely colourful leaflet that had all the answers I needed. I didn’t know you could get a £25K salary to hand out leaflets – where did I go wrong in life?

Of course I get the weekly emails from the careers service telling me about new and existing job opportunities – but that doesn’t help me actually do well in the application process.

Wait though – the University of Aberdeen does give us alumni a 20% discount should you decide to do your post grad studies here. They also offer ‘great’ scholarships, but they come with a catch – most of them are available only to Scottish and Non-UK EU residents. Lovely. So fellow international graduates, our university doesn’t care if you did your undergraduate here. To me it feels like a massive ‘Fuck you’ from AU after we’ve invested so much time and money into the institution.

One thing I will never forget is sometimes the lack of student engagement on campus, displayed in the pathetic voting turn-outs for elections, and even the Indy Ref. Many would say it is because most students generally don’t care about student politics. That to me is utter nonsense.

Of course we care about posters taped to lamposts.

After observing this place for four years I’ve realised a few things: There are some within AUSA who genuinely take their positions seriously and I have great admiration for while others are on power trips and only do it for their CVs.

On St. Paddy’s Day this year some clever person at AUSA decided it would be the perfect day to host a question and answer time with our Vice-Chancellor, Ian Diamond.

Unsurprisingly, no-one knew about it, and had funner things to do. Hardly anyone came and no questions were asked. So our Vice-Chancellor sat down and twiddled his thumbs while managing to earn a good £100 of his salary in that 30 min debacle. Amazing.

The problem is that those in AUSA who are doing it for the C.V don’t care enough themselves, and so don’t put in the effort or think about the students they represent.

University management are the same. Stop seeing us as numbers, statistics and walking cash dispensers. The argument that more students brings in more investment is nonsense – it should be quality not quantity. I’m not saying that AU should enact austerity measures, what I am saying is that they ought to be controlling the amount of students they already have. Not everyone needs to be at university, and it’s about time some of us are told that there are other ways in life.

And why is AU not learning from RGU who actively encourage their students to spend their 2^nd or 3^rd years to find employment? It essentially counts as credits towards their final degree and would be far more helpful than our second year which, in my opinion, was useless and a waste of time.

There are a lot of things Aberdeen University need to rethink – I’ll be a proud graduate, but I was also a disappointed and disenfranchised student.