{"id":6649,"date":"2025-11-26T10:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=6649"},"modified":"2025-11-26T10:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:20:00","slug":"i-came-for-the-secret-history-i-got-tesco-meal-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/opine\/2025\/11\/26\/i-came-for-the-secret-history-i-got-tesco-meal-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"I came for the secret history, I got Tesco meal deals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cbest years of your life\u201d, 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\u2019s a lot. And no one ever says that. I think the myth isn\u2019t that university can\u2019t 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\u2019s a universal \u201cperfect experience\u201d we\u2019re all supposed to be achieving? That\u2019s where things get messy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most students aren\u2019t trying to live a perfect life on purpose. <\/span>We’re doing what everyone else is doing: trying our best with the tools we have.<\/span> 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\u2026 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 <\/span>someone (real or not) who looks like they\u2019re thriving<\/span>: 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\u2019s missing something. You wonder if you\u2019re 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?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, here\u2019s my absolutely non-controversial opinion: nobody\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019re the main character. Some feel like you\u2019re not even in the cast. And that\u2019s all okay, because life works like that, not like a dark academia novel or a trailer.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the pressure to live the \u201cperfect university experience\u201d doesn\u2019t come from students being dramatic; it\u2019s 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\u2019t post it. Romanticising isn\u2019t 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\u2019s what is wrong. And let\u2019s not forget that on top of that, there\u2019s the academic side. The pressure to build the \u201cperfect future self\u201d while barely having figured out the present one. But again: it\u2019s not anyone\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the truth is far simpler: university doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t realise you needed; the bad day that taught you something; the ordinary morning when you finally felt at home\u2026 None of these moments are cinematic, and if they are, they\u2019re improvised. They\u2019re real, and real is better. <\/span>There is no universal university experience.<\/span> There is no checklist. There is no timeline. Nobody is late. Nobody is behind. Nobody \u201cmissed it.\u201d The things that make these years meaningful are rarely the things that look impressive online. They\u2019re the things that take time, or happen unexpectedly, or don\u2019t look special until much later. And that\u2019s because university is not a straight line or a perfect arc. I would say it\u2019s a beautiful grassfield you learn to walk through at your own speed.<\/span><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my take: you don\u2019t have to live them as your best years. You just have to live them. You don\u2019t need to reinvent yourself every semester. You don\u2019t need to know your five-year plan. You don\u2019t need a perfect friend group. You don\u2019t need an aesthetic routine. You don\u2019t need to become a character. <\/span>You are allowed to simply exist.<\/span> Learning, growing, getting things wrong, getting things right, making friends slowly, drifting through weeks, and discovering yourself by accident. If I\u2019ve learned anything from being a student and getting things wrong it\u2019s this: <\/span>everyone is improvising<\/span> 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\u2019t exist. But the real one…\u00a0 the uneven, imperfect, confusing, wonderful one, is more than enough.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":6650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":36,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[570,1461,1142,970,805],"wf_post_folders":[337],"class_list":["post-6649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-opine","tag-aesthetic","tag-cerni-roig-rabada","tag-opine","tag-student","tag-university"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Cerni Roig","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/cerni-roig\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Secret-history-and-meal-deals-image-200x300.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opine<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opine<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Aesthetic<\/a>","Cerni Roig Rabada<\/a>","Opine<\/a>","Student<\/a>","university<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Aesthetic<\/span>","Cerni Roig Rabada<\/span>","Opine<\/span>","Student<\/span>","university<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 months ago","modified":"Updated 10 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 26 November 2025","modified":"Updated on 26 November 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 26 November 2025 10:20","modified":"Updated on 26 November 2025 10:20"},"featured_img_caption":"Cup of Couple via Pexels","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6651,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions\/6651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=6649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}