By Arya Patel
At university, most of my time is not spent doing anything remarkable. I move between New King’s and William Guild, and occasionally the Taylor Library, walking under a sky that is always grey.
I sit in lectures and scribble half-formed thoughts. The days feel repetitive, uneventful — the kind of routine you might assume you would eventually get bored of. And yet this is where most of my university life is actually happening.
As a humanities student, I spend a lot of time thinking about meaning: how it is constructed, how it is shaped, who decides it. What I did not expect was for these questions to follow me out of lectures and into daily life.
I find myself wondering what it means to grow when nothing dramatic or eventful is happening, when life feels reduced to deadlines, walks to class, and cups of coffee drunk alone.
Moving away from home felt exciting. 17-year-old me wanted independence, wanted to live alone. But it has not felt like a clear break into adulthood. It has been quieter than that. Independence arrived in the absence of structure — no one asking where I was going, no one noticing when I stayed silent for a day, or what I ate for dinner. At first that freedom felt hollow, even unsettling.
I learned quickly that independence is not just the ability to do what you want, but the responsibility of deciding how to live with yourself.
There is a particular kind of loneliness at university — one that feels as much intellectual as emotional. You are surrounded by people who are thinking deeply, questioning themselves, changing at their own pace. Sitting in a lecture hall can feel both connected and separate. Everyone is learning something different, not just academically but personally, and much of that learning happens internally.
The weather in Aberdeen seems to amplify this inwardness. Grey skies and early darkness create a sense of enclosure, encouraging reflection whether you want it or not. Walking between buildings, I often feel suspended in thought, aware of how repetitive my days have become.
But the repetition is not empty. It has shape. It gives me something to push against, something within which change can happen quietly.
University teaches you how to think, but it also teaches you how to live with uncertainty. In the humanities, there are rarely clear answers — only interpretations, arguments, revisions. I have found that this mirrors life here. Some days I feel certain about who I am becoming; other days I feel completely unsure. Both exist at the same time.
I used to think meaning would arrive in obvious moments — achievements and milestones. Instead, I am learning to notice it in smaller and quieter things: returning to the same seat in the library, recognising faces without knowing names, realising that something which once felt overwhelming now feels manageable. Not easier in a dramatic way — simply different.
I am beginning to understand that these ordinary days are not something to get through. They are the experience itself.
