On University and What Ifs
A large component of the self-pitying I am definitely prone to is my devious habit of asking ‘what if’. What if I had gotten into Oxford? What if I chose different subjects at school? What if I had started talking to people earlier at school? You get the idea. Sure, a lot of them are school-based, but in my defence, I’m 18 and that stuff is all fresh in my mind. The questions also link to an idea I’ve been considering for some time now: do I want to go back to university? The thesis of this piece, before I launch into inevitable tangents, is my wondering about whether my subpar time at university and subsequent choice to leave could have been changed for the better, or if there are any clear lessons learned that can improve a future experience.
When I decided to leave university, I was certain. I knew four months in that if I continued with this for another three and a half years at this pace, I would look back on that time as poorly spent. Sure, it may have been hasty to cast such a negative prediction, but the main justification I have is that I didn’t see it getting better any time soon. Equally, I didn’t think an indefinite, generally unpleasant period of time at university was worth it in the long run. But none of this speaks to why I actually left. There are two simple reasons, as I’ve mentioned here before.
The first is simple: the course was accelerating at a pace I couldn’t keep up with, and the way it was being taught did not work for me. Moreover, my interest in studying it was waning significantly. The part I considered just as if not more important was that I had been unable to cultivate any sort of social life in the time I’d been there. It’s taken a while to reach this conclusion, but I don’t blame myself for that anymore. Still, that time was hard, and being on the tail end of a pandemic didn’t help. If I choose to go back to university, it would only ever be to study a course in which I had a real and vested interest – that would be my first priority, but not my only criterion. And so we come back to those pesky ‘what ifs’.
If I choose to go back to university – would it be better? The ‘what ifs’ help me evaluate things that went wrong in the past, to see if they can be improved upon. Used too liberally, however, and they become more of a detriment. I’ll give an example. What if the pandemic hadn’t happened? Would it have been easier for me to meet people? Would I have enjoyed the course more? Essentially, I am breaking down every critical event to see if replicating it under different circumstances could turn out successful. This is only for the factors outside of my control, though. For everything else, I have to consult a combination of my growth since that time and an honest evaluation of my capacity to change. Anyway, the decision to go back is still up in the air. But in the meantime, I’m going to start deconstructing those intangibles.
I also may return to ‘what ifs’ for another piece on a different subject. They’re annoyingly prevalent in my mind.