I sit here writing this having just left my last tutorial of my undergraduate degree at this university. It’s a sobering thought, the sense of an ending. It’s a feeling of impending doom, my rug of security and undergraduate indifference pulled right out from under me. Suddenly, all of those thoughts about what comes next – which I’m sure you’ve all been thinking, or not, depending on how long you have left in Oxford – are more real and tangible than they’ve ever been in my life.
I spent the majority of the said tutorial desperately trying to capture the moment, imprinting the image of the plastered panelling of the ceiling into my mind, its significance having dawned on me. I wanted to memorise the book lined shelves, and the sash window that looked out onto the quad, which always turned shades of amber and red this time of year, the leaves curling at the edges, poised to drop. The bells tolled at ten, and I was viciously reminded of the novelty of the experience, feeling as though I was in first year, sitting in my first tutorial at university. I felt the need to box-breathe, physically nostalgic for something that hasn’t actually ended yet. The rest of the hour was spent passively attempting to type, thinking of everything but the tutorial at hand, reminiscing over all of the tutorials I had ever had. I thought of the early mornings, and then the no-show mornings, and the Friday mornings that meant I could never go out on a Thursday. I thought about the rooms in which they took place, some slightly dingy, some with sofas that I sunk into and, sometimes, never wanted to leave.
Of all the things there are to get nostalgic about in this place, I never thought I’d be one to get nostalgic about tutes, but my mind could not help but wander. I thought about my first essay – the lengths I went to, trying to contribute something new to the field my tutor had spent a career pioneering. I was reliving the past while simultaneously trying to be present. It was a horrible feeling that hasn’t quite left me.
I’d once enviously eyed up my friends lounging on that very quad in the sun, when everything was warmer and infinitely more joyful, while I was stuck inside, but now I rue having ever had those thoughts. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing too. Anyway, all this goes to say is that I’ve been particularly retrospective as of late; wistful about an ending that is still very much a while away.
Many of us have heard the dreaded ‘So… any idea what you’re doing next?’. It makes me a little irate, anxious, and on the verge of a minor breakdown, as you can probably tell. Two years of my undergraduate degree have somehow disappeared with the blink of an eye – I am older but seem to be none the wiser. I’m convinced the conversation withers and dies when someone brings graduation up, and if I could, I’d put it in the burn book of social conventions. There seems to be a ratrace of applications and deadlines and career fairs and thesis abstracts, and I cannot help but feel like I missed the memo somewhere along the line. I seem to be stuck in a Catch-22 of wanting to be present for my last year at university, while simultaneously planning for the future – for adulthood and a career.
Grad job lined up or not, you’re lying to yourself if you haven’t felt the anxiety that clouds visions of a post-university future. It marks the end of a significant life chapter, another definitive end of youth as we know it. What awaits? Clapham for a lot of you, a mass migration to London, the Oxford bubble replaced with a much larger one. Small plates and big bills is what I’ve heard.
