As I sit here, shivering and glaring at the mould on my wall, I contemplate the woes of being a university student. Not only are we subject to dirty pints, hairy plugholes, and the infuriating advert breaks on 4OD, but we are constantly fighting a never ending battle with our classic stereotypes. There’s the promiscuous student: the one who’s always stumbling out to town, yelling “I’M ON THE PULL” and determinedly sucking faces with the force of a Henry Hoover all night long. This type of lazy student only has energy for one thing, and it sure isn’t work.
The vodka lover, who’s perpetually smashed or chundering, surfacing from their beer-tainted bedroom only in search of a bacon sarnie and a cuddle. A perfect example of this unfortunate creature is in fact my own dear flatmate, who after a night out proudly informed us “I PISSED IN MY BIN” with a cheerful lopsided grin. He was then found the next day, headache-ridden and upset, with both hands pulling rubbish out of the soggy bin, amusingly explaining “I seem to have poured beer into this”. If being elbow deep in your own wee isn’t a significant moment of realising you may have become a dirty student, I don’t know what is.
And of course, there’s the classic sloth, an example I am currently demonstrating: someone who sits on their arse all day, eating Jumbo packs of cheap crisps, watching Take Me Out and dragging themselves to the occasional lecture whilst actually using it as an opportunity to tweet endless updates on their lazy, lazy antics.
But whilst people occasionally do seem to be walking stereotypes (it’s 2pm and I still haven’t seen housemate no.2, who has descended into slothy Fifa-land), most of us have made a deal with the university devil (that is – tequila), and struck a balance between work and play. We all know people who have the regular one night stand, or spend the weekend sofa hogging eating Cheerio’s from the box, but we shouldn’t be defined by the odd lazy moment that everyone, no matter what age, does succumb to occasionally.
University is such a ball ache to get into, what with A-Levels trying to cast a permanent shadow over our souls, and with the fees rising higher than the stereotypical weed-lover, we don’t take this stuff for granted. The public sees us as lazy and messy, and I’ll admit that sometimes we are; but we’re also hard working, determined, and bloody motivated (if you’ve ever done a 9-5 workshop after spending the evening downing cider at quid’s night, you’ll know what I’m talking about).
Okay, so I’ve reluctantly climbed down from my high horse (more likely a donkey, actually, or rather a goat – I can’t afford a horse, I’m a student), and admitted that we each have our faults: some people don’t wash up, and other’s have a Fifty Shades libido, but we do all have one thing in common: we’re here to get our degree. Whether we’ve got a hangover that feels like a giraffe has thwacked us in the face or not, at the end of the day we still do our work. So whilst the student population do play hard (and so we should, ‘cause we earnt it), we definitely work even harder. So now I’m off to get dressed, wash up, de-mould my room, and read all about the French Revolution, and I’ll be seeing you at the pub later.
Victoria is a student studying English at Leeds University. Read her other article on student life HERE
