Great Expectations (Kiryll)

Charles Dickens takes on University 

What are you expecting university to be like? What are you hoping this three year plus journey will bring? Right now, there are thousands of Y12 finishers including me who are going to board a starship to a whole new galaxy – UniLife 200Z3b. But I know that in just a few months, all of us will have settled in and will regard tutes, lectures and assignments as normal, not the hazy unknown we see it as now. Whenever something novel happened or presented it-self to me, I was really excited, couldn’t believe it, counting my lucky stars. But after a while, the new events and objects were subsumed in my reality. They became normal and everyday.

And I think that’s what’s going to happen to university life as well, I will adapt! But what if I don’t? What if I suffer a forever-not-adapted curse and retire to an undisclosed island till the end of time to dwell on my existence? What if in 50 years a police robot finds this post and releases it to all university students to scare them and my curse becomes Hogwarts folklore?

I must come prepared. I must draw up a chart of what to expect from university, using friends and stereotypes because these sources are infallible.

When it comes to study

• Oracle says: You shall study less than during VCE. Study will be fun, with sunshine and no all nighters.
  Truth may be: I will never have a life again. I will read all day, write notes all day and sleep not because I want to, but because my body just shut down. 
• Oracle says: You have total freedom : some lectures do not require your attending. Enjoy your-self, your coffee/latte/hot chocolate is waiting.
  Truth says: You have total freedom. But not going to lectures will ensure your freedom is usurped by extra study. 
• Oracle says: You will have great relations with ALL your lecturers, on a close and cordial basis.
  Truth says: Most lecturers will not know you, forget your name in the first weeks, mistake you for somebody else.

When in comes to social life

• Oracle says: You will go out almost every day. Your day will start at 12 pm and finish in a taxi cab faring home at 3 am.
  Truth says: Your friends will go out almost every day. Your day will start at 8 am and finish at your desk at 3 am.
• Oracle says: Shots Shots Shots!!
  Truth says: Everyone but you will exclaim “Shots Shots Shots”, a sober life is a life with a healthy liver. 
• Oracle says: Uni is a friend-monger. You will be extremely happy with the life long buddies you make along the way.
  Truth says: Uni is definitely a place where you will make life long friends who share your passions. 

When it comes to family life

• Oracle says: You will have your own cosy Manhattan-esque  apartment in Fitzroy, sharing it with your best-friends.
  Truth says: You will rent out your room from your parents, asking for permission to have sleepovers with your best-friends.
• Oracle says: Your parents will be supportive of the career path you take upon graduation.
  Truth says: Your parents will be supportive of the career path you take upon their recommendation. 
• Oracle says: Family is family. You will always be close.
  Truth agrees. 

With these expectations ready, I will make sure to pin them up on my wall and study them assiduously.  I really do hope uni will be great. And I know it will. I’ll make sure of it.

Hope everyone had a morning, day and a night.