I would argue that everyone arrives at university carrying one extra suitcase. One has clothes and a vanity case. Another one may be your laptop, books, or even more clothes. But you have another one. The other has expectations; the kind of expectations you never pack on purpose but somehow bring anyway. They come from movies, TikTok, glossy brochures, family or older friends who tell you these will be the “best years of your life”, and the general cultural idea that university is where everything clicks into place. So, you step onto campus quietly convinced that your experience should look a certain way. You expect cinematics: making dazzling friends on day two, attending seminars that feel like TED talks, spontaneous road trips, midnight debates on morality, someone inviting you onto a trip to mainland Europe for reasons never explained, studying in sunlit corners with a latte that somehow never goes cold, and the general sense that you are living in the pilot episode of something important. It’s a lot. And no one ever says that. I think the myth isn’t that university can’t be wonderful, it definitely can. But the idea that it has to be wonderful all the time? That it should look like The Secret History or Babel? That there’s a universal “perfect experience” we’re all supposed to be achieving? That’s where things get messy.
Most students aren’t trying to live a perfect life on purpose. We’re doing what everyone else is doing: trying our best with the tools we have. Romanticising parts of your life is not a crime, but I would say it sometimes is a coping mechanism. Making your study space pretty, taking photos with your friends, creating memories… none of that is wrong. Sometimes a Polaroid wall is the only proof we have that good things are happening amid deadlines and uncertainty. But pressure sneaks in quietly. We all see an indigestible amount of content about someone (real or not) who looks like they’re thriving: the person with an aesthetic morning routine, the friend group that seems surgically inseparable, the student who balances five societies, three internships, a part-time job and a social life that would kill a Victorian child. You compare without meaning to. Everyone does. Suddenly, your perfectly normal life starts to feel like it’s missing something. You wonder if you’re doing university wrong. Should I be having more fun? Should I be busier? Should my friendships be stronger? Should my routine be prettier? Should my experience look more like the idea I had before arriving?
Well, here’s my absolutely non-controversial opinion: nobody’s experience looks like the idea, not even the people who look like it does. The friend group that seems perfect in photos has arguments none of them posted about. The society president who looks effortlessly put-together probably had a breakdown over an essay at 2am. The person with the tidy study routine has days off where the only productive thing they do is wash a cup. The student posting constant content has quiet, lonely evenings just like everyone else. And, what the hell, all of that is perfectly fine. University life is not a film. It’s more of a collection of real, uneven days. Some are brilliant, some are boring, some are messy. Some feel like filler episodes. Some feel like you’re the main character. Some feel like you’re not even in the cast. And that’s all okay, because life works like that, not like a dark academia novel or a trailer.
But the pressure to live the “perfect university experience” doesn’t come from students being dramatic; it’s the result of all of us living in a world where everything is visible. If you see twenty people having fun, your brain believes everyone except you is having fun, forgetting that on the same day twenty different people were having a terrible time and didn’t post it. Romanticising isn’t wrong. The quiet expectation that we should be living up to our own romanticised version of what university is supposed to be, I think that’s what is wrong. And let’s not forget that on top of that, there’s the academic side. The pressure to build the “perfect future self” while barely having figured out the present one. But again: it’s not anyone’s fault. Everyone is responding to the same cultural script, the Hollywood one, the one that says university is the defining chapter of your life, and you must therefore define yourself flawlessly.
Yet the truth is far simpler: university doesn’t need to be perfect to matter. In fact, most of the meaningful moments are the unremarkable ones: the slow walk to class with someone who becomes important to you; the half-failed study session that ends in laughter; the lecture that unexpectedly fascinates you; the inside joke born from a gym session with a friend; the quiet afternoon you didn’t realise you needed; the bad day that taught you something; the ordinary morning when you finally felt at home… None of these moments are cinematic, and if they are, they’re improvised. They’re real, and real is better. There is no universal university experience. There is no checklist. There is no timeline. Nobody is late. Nobody is behind. Nobody “missed it.” The things that make these years meaningful are rarely the things that look impressive online. They’re the things that take time, or happen unexpectedly, or don’t look special until much later. And that’s because university is not a straight line or a perfect arc. I would say it’s a beautiful grassfield you learn to walk through at your own speed.
So here’s my take: you don’t have to live them as your best years. You just have to live them. You don’t need to reinvent yourself every semester. You don’t need to know your five-year plan. You don’t need a perfect friend group. You don’t need an aesthetic routine. You don’t need to become a character. You are allowed to simply exist. Learning, growing, getting things wrong, getting things right, making friends slowly, drifting through weeks, and discovering yourself by accident. If I’ve learned anything from being a student and getting things wrong it’s this: everyone is improvising guys. No one is ahead. No one is behind. Let me say that the most important parts of university happen when we stop trying to perform and start letting life happen. The perfect university experience doesn’t exist. But the real one… the uneven, imperfect, confusing, wonderful one, is more than enough.