Lot's Wife Edition 2 2016

STUDENT
Being a student
is like a get-outof-jail
free card.
You’re allowed
to be broke and
eat junk food.
You’re allowed to
stay up all night
completing an
assignment in its
entirety.
University is a unique time of your life. I’m in my third
year and I had to change my course twice before I settled
on something I was finally happy with. For me, university
has been a journey of self-discovery and growth. It taught
me responsibility and independence, something I thought I
had at high school but I hardly did. University, for me, was
a gateway to moving overseas and experiencing something
different to the familiar ground of New Zealand that I grew
up in.
I’ve been a waitress and I’ve been fired. In fact, I’ve
gone through a handful of different jobs. I’ve learned how
to make coffee, how to cater for a wedding, how to use the
checkout register at McDonalds, how to sell suitcases and
how to cook hamburgers; grounding experiences that I
would never have been through if I wasn’t a student. I’ve
been in overdraft multiple times, survived on two-minute
noodles on numerous occasions, spontaneously spent my
pay-cheque on flights to New Zealand the day before I left,
and of course, spent money on clothes I probably didn’t
need. But to me, those mistakes are okay. They’re okay
because they happened throughout the journey of something
much greater. And that’s the wonderful thing about
university – it’s a long-term investment of knowledge,
experience, discovery and growth. Making mistakes is okay
because they happen as you acquire new skills and build
yourself into something far greater than what you were to
begin with.
Being a student is like a get-out-of-jail free card. You’re
allowed to be broke and eat junk food. You’re allowed to stay
up all night completing an assignment in its entirety. You’re
allowed to abuse caffeine because you have exams. You’re
allowed to call your parents two days before payday and
ask them for money. You’re allowed to get hopelessly drunk
on Saturday night and spend all Sunday in bed recovering,
only to stay awake all night again watching Netflix before
crawling to your Monday 9am lecture in your old jeans and
a hoodie. Do you think you could maintain such a chaotic
lifestyle so successfully and free of judgment while working
a 9-5 professional job?
You are not working for another person or a corporation
– you are working for yourself. These are years you can
spend shamelessly focusing on no one but yourself, figuring
out what you really want to do in this world. You can change
your mind about what course you want to do but nothing
will be wasted, because with every subject you take comes
a new set of skills and new knowledge that you will take
with you everywhere you go. No one is forcing you to do
anything. You can take classes that really captivate your interest,
and write essays on topics that really matter to you.
You are the curator and sole author of your own
future, and gosh, aren’t we so lucky to be in that position?
Never again in our lives will we get three-month holidays.
Never again will we have the opportunity to travel, the opportunity
to try new things, to study different fields, to go
on exchange and live in a different country, to paint our own
destiny and be whoever it is that we might want to be.
After spending the last two years being scared of the
fact that I’ve tied myself down for 5+ years into a conjoint
law/arts degree with honours, I think it is time to see these
circumstances as nothing short of a blessing.
See our inside back page for some tips and
tricks for making through the daily grind.
Lot’s Wife | 11