Why do we all complain about our degrees when they’re meant to be our passion?

“I’m really passionate about Psychology, and would love the opportunity to study it at degree level.”

Sound familiar?

Well it should do, because we all wrote some variation of that on our personal statement when we were applying to uni.  And, crazy though it sounds, it may not have been a total lie.

When no one tells your face you love what you study

It seems difficult at this point in the year to imagine, once upon a time, you were actually interested in what you study, and it wasn’t just an occasional unwelcome hurdle between lay ins and nights out.  And right now, it’s a particularly awkward bump between you and summer.

You must have cared about your subject at some point to spend hours slaving over your UCAS application and to even consider spending £9,000 a year to be here studying it. So what happened?  As exam season dawns on us, 9/10 conversations will probably include how much we can’t bear our courses.

Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you enthused about your degree?  When was the last time you rated a pile of reading anywhere above insufferable?

Maybe “insufferable” was too kind

If we even bother going to lectures they’re “a waste of time”, and we become envious of those who miss them because they missed out on what was “potentially the most boring and painful hours of my life”.

Questions about your revision will rarely be met with more than a grunt, maybe a tear or two from the more emotionally fragile or threats to drop out of uni because it’s just so boring, and you seek a simpler hunter-gatherer-esque way of living.

The essays are going terribly because you put them off for so long, knowing the pain that awaited you.  You’ve decided not to plan it in an attempt to hasten the end of your misery, the “oh god, it’s basically just the worst thing ever, none of it’s fitting together” references are all over the place, and you don’t even know what you’re trying to say anymore.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Maybe it’s just that time of year: everyone’s stressed and just wants to get through this semester as quickly as possible.  But then again it’s not like the 9am lecture has always been packed with people desperate to gorge themselves on their tutor’s knowledge, rather than yawns and dazed faces.

Courses are a lot like marriages.  Great at first, you just can’t wait to see those books out of their covers. But sure enough the passion will die, and you’ll be complaining about your other half for the rest of your time at uni.

“I look forward to the challenges degree level education will bring” chimes our personal statements.  How naive we were.