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Fed up with this student bullshit

• Daniel Budden
• 21 Mar 2007 18:00

I am fed up with the 'student myth.' Facebook is the latest culprit. All those tired, clichéd ideas about what a student is in those groups with titles such as "You know you're a student when..." which imply that unless you spend all day watching Scrubs and eating supernoodles, your status as a student is somehow inferior and you are fraudulent in some way and should wear a t-shirt branded "I'm not a real student."

Not all students match that quite diagreeably unpleasant, clichéd mould chucked about by Channel 4 soaps and chain emails - "you spend all night partying and all day sleeping." Some students have families, some are working hard and getting on with it, and a lot of us are just self-confessed geeks. Watching alpha types trying to out-do each other by trying to embody the student myth is toe-curling, having to share a bar with them: mildly tortourous. There's nothing wrong with being a party-animal, but it's not a competition gentlemen!

In light of this I have tried to come up with my own, non-bullshit list of things that I have learned from 4 years in this splendid institution. Feel free to add your own additions through the comments button.

The hill in Singleton Park gets steeper every year. I mean this literally, I think it's due to erosion of the soil.

Every week you will get an email about the ECDL, and every week you'll think what a good idea it is...but you never do it. Alternative ending: you go to the first meeting, discover it costs over £100, and then never do it.

There are never any teaspoons.

50% of the emails you receive will invite you to take part in a pyschology experiment 'for my dissertation.'

Nothing soaks a t-shirt faster than washing a teaspoon.

You always forget to avoid campus like the plague on SU or AU election day. (I'm going to the library instead of staying in bed all day because I have work to do, not because I want to listen to your crap mate!)

Ok I'll let you off with this one. It really does always rain in Swansea.

A lot of people hate students. Very often because of jealousy. Which is not totally unfair: we do get it pretty easy compared to real people with real jobs (how many of us actually spend 9+ hours a day working? Really? Every day?). The only downside is the relative lack of money. But let's be honest with each other - we're among friends here - if we had had more, then most of us would have been drunk more often and ended up just as skint. We are very lucky and privileged to be students. The best way to appreciate that is to enjoy your time, whether you spend it all in JCs or the library - but it's also important to acknowledge that privilege from time to time, because not everyone is as lucky as you.

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