When I was 18, while the rest of my friends were flocking off to various universities to enlarge their brains, I opted to move to London, live in a squat, do a lot of drugs, and just generally disappoint my parents. Now, four years later, I have a job (kind of), I no longer get bloody noses, and I don’t regret my decision not to go to university. However, there is the odd occasion when I feel like maybe I missed out on something that could have been a valuable life experience (particularly when I’m watching Legally Blonde). Here are some of the reasons why sometimes I kind-of sort-of feel like there might be a teeny tiny part of me that wishes I went to college.
1. I don’t know anything.
This is becoming more and more apparent as I get older and the people around me seem to possess all this knowledge that I just don’t—like who invented gravity, how to crack top-secret codes, or where Saudi Arabia is. It’s not that I’m unintelligent. It’s just that I don’t know as much as educated people do. But when it comes down to it, are these trivial bits of information really vital to my survival in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. So then why can’t I play Trivial Pursuit without some college-face making me feel like a philistine? WhatEVER! Name me one college grad that knows how to pick a padlock using only a tube of mascara and a thong.
2. The opportunity to unashamedly have profound amounts of sloppy drunken sex with people you just met.
Realistically, you can do this without attending university. But still, it would be fun to get to do it in a college environment where it’s totally normal to have sex with a chicken wing in your mouth. Plus I can only assume that all those STD’s floating around make you feel like you’re living on the edge, laughing in the face of danger.
3. I never had a dorm room where I could smoke pot, hang obnoxious posters of Salvador Dali paintings, and listen to my roommate have sex.
The idea of student housing always sounded like so much fun to me. Maybe it’s like they say and you always want what you don’t have, but I’ve always been seriously bummed out that I never got to share a room with a total stranger and have mind-expanding debates about whether MGMT or Vampire Weekend is more deep.
4. I will never be a doctor.
My mother says as long as you’ve got determination and Jesus in your heart you can do anything you put your mind to, but I have a feeling she might be wrong about this one.
They don’t teach you jungle survival skills at university, that’s for sure. Have you ever considered a career in the circus?
Your life sounds fun though. :)
You’re less illiterate than half the university-educated people I know…
Yeah I’m in my third year of uni and I can hardly string an intelligent conversation together.
your mom goes to college…ps i got your dorm room right here
1. You write better than most journalism grads. I know, I burn their error-riddled CVs on a regular basis.2. If you went to college in England, the majority of this drunken sex would have been with really ugly kids with funny voices and Coldplay records.3. A UCL philosophy graduate I know once asked who Ariel Sharon was.