28 Jun 2016

It’s O-Week at your new uni and you’re feeling the nervous tingle of pre-adventure. Either that or the weird-tasting organic smoothie you smashed earlier wasn’t so ‘fresh’ after all. It’s probably nerves though – you’re starting a new way of life, after all.

But at least in exploring the campus that will become central to your life over the next few years, you’ve already met some interesting people. They’ve given you a choice to make.

You met Edgar, an earnest-looking dude in a freshly ironed polo shirt, who was champing at the bit to get learning: he’d already arranged to get a personal overview of one subject from some Professor later. He’s invited you to join him. You met a young woman wearing a rugby uniform, cape, and a large sombrero. She’s invited you to a party at Mugga House—your new residence, coincidentally. And you met the most ridiculously good-looking person ever, who offered you a pamphlet and wants to talk about saving the student union.

Edgar, Sombrero and Zoolander: some very different characters inviting you to some very different uni experiences. Which one do you choose?

The Studious Student

You choose to go meet Edgar. He seems like someone with his priorities straight. Throughout O-Week, you two attend every info session you can, pump course advisors for tips, and spend the GDP of an island nation on textbooks. You become good friends.

During first semester you attend not just the first one or two lectures, but all of them. You enjoy them: the Professor is an expert in his field with numerous published books.

You enjoy the debate and discussion of tutorials. You develop a taste for coffee, know where to submit your hard-copy assessments, and are on first name basis with the library staff. You love the challenge of higher learning, though you’re nervous about exams.

Those exams come around. You’re prepared. You’ve got this. Right up until the night before, when you don’t. In trying to read over your notes, the words themselves begin to sound funny. ‘Reciprocity’? That just sounds so weird…You try to focus, and drink so many coffees that you can’t sit still. Anxiety grips. It turns into a delirious fatigue and you drift into a weird dream wherein you run round Mugga’s halls flapping your arms and hunting down a killer parakeet that is attacking residents’ eyes…

When you wake up on exam day, there are no parakeets. Everything seems better. You make it to the exam fine. Later, it’s embarrassing when that video of you running around screaming about birds goes viral, but you get over it. And when your results come in it’s good news. You continue to blitz uni throughout, and get invited to take on a PhD. You’re going to study the effects of excessive stress on individuals. You’re a bit nervous about it…

The Party Animal

You choose to catch up with Sombrero. She introduces you around at the party you both rock up to. That first night of O-Week kicks on until pretty late…in the week. Well it kicks on all year, really: Sombrero is a dead-set weapon. You get along like a house on fire. Literally. You guys are jointly responsible for the small blaze that breaks out in Mugga’s kitchen after a game of Kings goes badly wrong. The parentals have to provide the first of many bail-outs.

You become active in uni life, except for the study part. You don’t know where your lectures are held or how to work the library search system anyway – the study part sucks. But you do throw yourself into other aspects, and it’s not all drinking-related: you organise dorm poker nights, try out new bars with international students, and manufacture beer bongs that deserve distinctions in the engineering courses you rarely attend…okay, so maybe it is mostly drinking related. You’ve met so many cool people and had so many laughs that you haven’t had time to think about exams – first year is too awesome to be thinking about those.

Those exams come around. You struggle to concentrate on the questions – you’re thinking about the celebration that’s coming after them. It’s gonna go off.

Your results come in. You fail. So you might have to do first year all over again. Best news ever!

The Activist

You choose to talk to Zoolander. In reading his pamphlet, you discover they’re planning to make cuts to the Student Union. Bastards. You don’t know what the Student Union does, but they sound like the underdog and one worth fighting for. Yeah, you tell Zoolander, you will go to the ‘group gathering’ that night, it sounds interesting.

And it is. It’s full of intelligent, interested people. Passionate, rousing speeches are given. People talk about the importance of student unionism, but also bigger things – things that matter, like Brexit and refugees and Marxism. You find it inspiring.  You start reading widely, and discussing deep subjects. You go to lectures for a while, but begin to wonder whether the Prof is just spooning you consumerist mind-wash.

You develop a bit of a thing with Zoolander. You don’t go to uni bar nights or dorm parties, but you have close friends, and you have your own parties, often around bonfires. You care about taking up the fight for needy causes. Defending the Student Union occupies so much of your time that you almost forget exams are coming.

Those exams come around. The questions seem designed to maintain the existing social order to you. You donkey your papers with brief arguments as to why capitalism doesn’t work.

Your results come in…and you do okay. Maybe the Prof is worth her salt. Maybe you’ll even see this uni thing out. Yeah it can be mundane, but someone needs to stick around and fight for that student union, so that it will kick on for future students to one day work out what in the actual f*ck it does.

What path are you going to take?