OK, so apart from being broke, having to write incredibly long essays and living without central heating for three years, wasn’t university the best? Maybe there are a few things you don't miss - your terrible uni diet (pot noodle all damn day), your terrible choice in men and showering in the HELL that was a halls of residence communcal bathroom (before hand sanitzer was a thing), but the older we get, the reality that uni really was the 'best days of your life' seems to be slowly sinking in. Especially when we're on a commuter train wedged into an armpit instead of hitting 'snooze' and sacking off lectures.
If, like us, you also hanker for your student days, you’ll probably miss these things too…
1. Doing the weekly shop in your onesie like it was totally normal
Why do the Tesco cashiers glare at you when you do this now, just because you’re a teensie, weensie bit older? It’s ageist.
2. Being incredibly proud of yourself after writing 2,000 words in two weeks
Nowadays, you write double that in a day of achingly boring email correspondence, with no sense of accomplishment but only a niggling feeling of having spent the whole day catching up with meaningless admin.
3. Seeing your friends constantly
There was none of this rubbish about scheduling in drinks for December that is so familiar now you’re all working women – you dropped by their student digs uninvited, made potato waffles in the toaster together and felt out of the loop if you hadn’t seen them for two days.
4. Going out four times a week…
…And experiencing fleeting, ‘I’m a young person’ hangovers incomparable to the torture you now experience after just two glasses of wine.
5. Actually learning stuff
It may sound geeky, but a lecture on something you’re actually interested in is a whole lot more appealing than another dreadful business skills meeting where you feel like you’re in a retro episode of The Office.
6. Wasting time
Nowadays, you feel guilty watching Netflix for an hour, but remember the long, endless university afternoons when you knew you could push back doing that essay and just go and sit on the grass and do absolutely nothing for hours and hours? That’s a pleasure hardly ever found in the frantic working world.
7. Being allowed to make mistakes
Telling a guy you barely knew you loved him while mascara tears streamed down your cheeks? Falling over on the library steps in front of the whole university population? Oversleeping and missing three lectures in a row? Everything was fine. You were young, you were learning. Now, you agonise over the tiniest misdemeanour for months, and any life mistakes often seem unforgivable.
** 8. Student loans**
Back when they were fun and not an unwelcome reminder of your misspent youth with every payslip.
9. Casual romancing
Before the days of Tinder (no, we never had such a thing at uni), popular chat-up lines included ‘are you in my Friday morning seminar?’ and ‘are you a Fresher?’ Typical dates would include a drink at the student pub, where your friends would spot you across the room and ‘subtly’ take pictures of your dalliance, or alternatively, just meeting in a nightclub on a school uniform fancy dress night and classily kissing each other after two minutes of Jaegerbomb-fuelled conversation.
10. Being in a young body
You signed up to the university gym at Fresher’s week and promptly quit, resigning yourself to three years of Domino’s student deals and falling asleep on the sofa with chips on your lap. But it was fine, because you were 20. Nowadays, one stop at the takeaway on the way home and you can feel it in your waistband the next day.
11. Sleeping as much as you wanted
Remember when you actually had to set your alarm for 11am in case you missed your 1 o’clock lecture? Now, the guilt sets in if you ever sleep past 9am on a weekend, and whole days spent in your pyjamas are a truly yearned-for, impossible luxury. Plus, napping. Need we say more?
12. Making new friends
It wouldn’t be uncommon to leave for the library in the morning, bump into a friend with two other friends, meet them and two other friends for lunch, ditch the studying in the afternoon for a two-for-one Cineworld deal, and have eight new friends by the evening. Unfortunately, once you become old, adult-ish and ever more cynical, it can be much tougher to make brand new friends when you barely have any time to see your own family.
13. Being communally broke
There was something fraternal about all seven of your housemates also only having £7.95 for the next week, and something comradely about trudging off to your part-time jobs together, commiserating about the cost of a train ticket home on the way. But nowadays, being broke is more frightening, and there’s no prospect of a Fresher’s fair or fancy dress night out to cheer you up – but the unrealistic thought of quitting the rat race and moving to Thailand features in your mind more than it probably should.
14. Watching daytime TV
Your friends would actually come over to watch Jeremy Kyle and Come Dine With Me as a group. Now, these shows are sadly relegated to the sick day, and when you drop them into conversation, you’re regarded with the utmost horror by the friends who have become engaged, got married and even had children while you were still recovering from the shock of uni ending.
15. Not being judged for your utter incompetence
So you didn’t know how to make a risotto and you shrunk all your clothes the first few times you washed them. Back then it was funny, a talking point, but now you’re a dull adult, domestic ineptitude is something to be hidden at all costs.
16. The ease of it all
Whether it was not having to actually sort your life out, or not being fully involved in any sort of office politics yet, life seemed so much less complicated just a few years ago, where adulthood seemed miles away and I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor was the coolest song on your iPod (yes, iPod).