What it’s like to go to a uni that everyone laughs at

We aren’t full of peasants.

When people talk about pitying those that go to a rubbish uni you can bet that Trent students are near the top of their list.

Going to university should be a commendable achievement wherever you go.

Our lordly neighbours at the University of Nottingham have been ruling the roost for as long as we can all remember, leaving us apparently in the shadows.

Something about our beloved NTU clearly comes across as a bit of a joke which means we are constantly having to fight our corner and justify why we go here.

Probably one of the most common problems is people assuming that it must be an insurance choice. People just can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that given the option students would put Trent as their first choice.

Trent wins awards for my course in journalism. In Trent’s case though it’s a no brainer – it’s central and a whole lot of fun. But that’s irrelevant.

Your standard Trent night out

To make matters worse, you then have to deal with people’s awkward assumption that you go to University of Nottingham. When asked where you go to uni you are never going to get a good reaction, so it is advisable to just avoid this question at all costs.

If you just say Nottingham, it is almost guaranteed that the person you are speaking to will go off on a rant about how amazing UoN is and how perfect you must be to go there.

At this point, there are two options: admit you are not that amazing, you go to Trent, and receive the disappointed/shocked eyebrow raiser.

Alternatively, smile sweetly, nod and walk away content that at least one person is impressed by your (false) academic achievements.

More embarrassingly if you tell people straight away that you go to Trent, you can expect a slight look of disgust to be heading your way. After it seems almost obligatory to justify why you have chosen to go there instead of UoN and why it is so much better.

As if going to a shit uni was not bad enough, shit unis usually come with shit courses, or so everyone thinks.

Despite the fact that Trent has courses that are more likely to actually get you ready for the world of work, established unis have brainwashed people into thinking that unless you take courses like History of Art or Geography you are clearly just wasting your time.

My course, for example, is a particular target for this. As a journalism student at Trent, I am constantly having to convince people that I am not just on a three year holiday.

“You’re a media student right? You watch films all day don’t you?”

I would love to make every person who has said that sit in one session of my shorthand class and take the law exam we had last year. I wish there were more films involved.

This next one is more for the girls. It seems that along the way people have been led to believe that if you go to an ex-poly then you are automatically a slut who is willing to jump into bed with any Tom, Dick or Harry. Good luck with that boys.

Better fancy dress than anyone else

We are forever being referred to as dumbasses. In the eyes of outsiders we are all too dumb to get into a good uni and are simply the rejects of society.

Apparently, we wanted the pleasure of saying we went to a university but could not quite get into the real ones, so just had to take what we could get and pretend instead.

All of these insults are frustrating and tiring to put up with. There is nothing worse than UoN snobs who dish them out for three years then proceed to cross enemy lines and do a masters at Trent.

All of a sudden the laughable courses become necessary to let them get the job they wanted so when we think about this logically they could have saved themselves a year and just joined the Trent Army in the first place.

We aren’t all poor and struggling for our next meal. Just because we lack in private school wankers this does not mean we were raised in a gutter. By the looks of the prices for Byron and Gill Street alone, it is pretty clear that we are doing just fine. 

Just because we do nights on a fiver, doesn’t mean we’re all skint

We might be lower in the league tables, but there’s a reason everyone comes on our nights out.

We have a die hard party spirt that people are forever jealous of. What other uni can host the likes of Oliver the Jellyfish Man?

Trent is also the maker of the man who wrote the Bob The Builder theme tune. If that’s not something to be proud of I don’t know what is.