Dave On The Academic After-Life

So you've done it. You've put out enough sweat to bring Kiribati's submersion threat to a tipping point. You've driven yourself to a point of madness that you're borderline comatose. And you've written enough essays to make the sum of every Wikipedia page resemble a brief scribbling on a Post It note. You've completed university. And somehow, you are still alive. Somehow.

And yet, despite all the blood, sweat, tears and what have you, you've managed to do the unthinkable and complete your studies. In the time it took you to complete them, you've borne witness to the election of 24 US presidents, the reign of seven British monarchs, the coming and going of 50 popes, six viral epidemics, the Second Coming, the death of Keith Richards, the series finale of The Simpsons, the discovery of extraterrestrial life, interstellar travel, a Charles in Charge reboot, the discovery of intelligent life, solved the Rubik's cube by yourself, and of course, the discovery of a new species of flying pig.

And yet, one finds oneself so accustomed to studying, it is easy to concede that one misses studying once they've completed it. Well, certain parts of it anyway. It is easy to become routinized after a prolonged period of study. For you, it seems, your destiny lies sitting in lecture theaters for all eternity, rocking up to Orientation Week for free food, music, and to be pestered by representatives of major banks about the merits of a tertiary bank account and low interest credit cards. And in some cases, the hoarding of student diaries. Such experiences may vary according to your age group and other related demographics. If you're young and just starting off in life, you may not turn up to lectures and tutorials at all and instead choose to study the effects of generous ethanol consumption on the human body between Wednesday and Saturday. In which case, your ability to reminisce on such things may be somewhat impeded by the fact that your memories of your academic tenure collectively resemble that of a QR bar code.

But of course, university or college study is not all fun and games. There are always things that, once you've finished everything and have entered the working world, you will never want to revisit or even think about ever again. Exams and assignments are perhaps the best examples of these. Both tend to send you mad with stress and anxiety. Reminiscing about the last time you had to do assignments or exams is a bit like reminiscing about that time you had venereal disease. You don't want to think about them at all. You want to leave them buried in the past where they belong. Bringing them back into recollection will only make you shudder with dread.

It is perhaps a bit of a culture shock of sorts to find yourself out of study and briefly unemployed, or looking for a job with nothing but a flashy piece of paper that suggests that you are a clever dick and that you have the appropriate license to prove it. But, because life goes on, change is inevitable and that college education is terribly expensive, you have little choice but to move onward and upward. Money doesn't grow on trees (although technically it once did) and it can buy all sorts of flashy, fancy things, such as the latest smartphone, which you, if you have an unfortunate predilection for being butter-fingered, can expect to replace on a cyclical basis of every two weeks or so. Having said that, a bottom-rung job at Maccas it seems, is well and truly out of the question. In the end, you may miss amongst many other things that routine weekly structure that comes with being a student, but at least you won't have to experience the sensation of impending doom that arises from anticipating the latest exam results or assignment marks.