What To Do If You're Sick Of Uni

Sleep. Uni. Work. Eat. Repeat. The same cycle until the glorious weekend hits, unless you have to work on weekends to survive (who doesn't?).

There is simply no rest for the wicked and uni can really take it out of you. When you’re not at work, you’re at uni. When you’re not resting, you’re doing uni work. When you’re not eating… well, you’re most likely stress eating about uni most of the time anyway.

You try your hardest and still end up getting a crappy mark. You try and make some friends, but no one is clicking with you. Look, uni isn’t that bad but we don't blame you if you're just straight up sick of it all.

So, what do you do when you’re over it? Here's a couple of options:

1. Take a break

If you’re not ready to dive into uni or you’ve gone head first and crashed a bit too hard, look at the option of deferring your course.

Most universities require you to submit a deferral request and if you’re successful, your study will be on hold for one semester or one year. Others will allow you to just avoid enrolling in any classes for a semester or year and come back without any extra paper work, so make sure you check what the rules are for your uni specifically. Either way, you want to do this without academic or financial penalty, so chat to an advisor before you do anything that could cost you later on.

Deferring is literally like an extended holiday, that’ll (hopefully) help you tackle studying better when you head back to uni.

On your break go do a short course, find an apprenticeship, volunteer. Work in hospo and then jump to retail. Pull beers and serve customers. Get involved in your community and volunteer at the local dog shelter. Go travelling–get on a plane if you can afford it or knuckle down and save your pay cheques if you can’t. Get in the car and go on a road trip; adventures don’t have to be across countries to be eye-opening.

And if you’ve done all that and decide you want to head back to studying? Go for it. Picking up your degree where you left off after a wee lil' break of rejuvenating is good for the soul and it’s even proven that it can boost your grades.  

2. Find a cheap (or free) support service

Everyone experiences some sort of struggle at uni; you’re not alone. But the best thing to do is not bottle up those negative thoughts that are clouding your headspace.

Reach out to your mates, family and support services on campus and let them know how you’re feeling–tell them you're struggling, that you hate what you're doing or that you feel lonely in your course. Whatever it is, chat it out and get it off your chest to someone you trust.

Every university should have a support team that offers subsidised, if not free, access to mental health professionals. While there might be a little wait to get an appointment, book it in and get ready to spill you guts to someone whose job is literally to sit there and listen to you.

Everything feels better after a massive vent so even if your friends or parents can't help you with solid advice, just having them there to listen to you getting everything off your chest can make a big difference to how you're feeling about life and uni. Plus, you'll probably find that once you talk it all out, things aren't as bad as they seem and all those assignments, exams and readings piling up are actually pretty manageable.

3. Sort your life out and make some changes

No beating round the bush here–uni is tough. The massive workload, the uncertainty of your future and financial stress add up. You've got readings to keep up with, lectures that you accidentally napped through and placement coming up that you're completely unprepared for. Not to mention the fact that you're probably broke, tired and hungry 90% of the time–it's no wonder you're sick of the place.

If you’re truly unhappy about where you’re heading, it’s time to make changes. There's nothing stopping you from making decisions that can change everything. 

Don’t like what you’re studying? Change your degree. Don’t like your campus? Transfer universities. Want something different? Look at some overseas programs where you’ll be studying while kickin’ back and eating pasta in Italy. Sick of commuting to campus? Look at units you can do online from the comfort of your bed.

You're not the first person to get sick of uni and you're definitely not the last (I challenge you to find one person who hasn't been sick of studying at one point) but you're going to make it through this and while you might never love studying, there are ways to actually enjoy your time at uni; trust us.