THE END IS NEAR!

Illustration by Sara Moana (she/her)

Oh God. We’re almost there, third-years.

Here’s a hot take – us mad-lads who started in 2020, be it in person or distance learners, have not had an easy run as the “Covid class” or whatever they’re calling us at the moment. Surprisingly, viruses running amok and causing us to adapt every few weeks is NOT an ideal situation for starting university! Go figure!

I feel like if we could roll back the clock, many of us would’ve chosen to start either the year prior or post when we actually began, but at the same time I think we all know we wouldn’t change a damn thing. Sure, it’s been stressful, but it’s also been… unique? And now we’re reaching the end. We be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building (ye-yo).

And now that we are so close to the end, it just feels wrong. Like, three years have flown by, we’re more in debt than we were but also have a shit tonne more knowledge and life experience? Overall, it can be very easy to look back on the last three years and just feel jaded about it all. It’s hard not to feel a sense of doubt, or wonder if we did the right thing by even attending uni in the first place.

It’s like being in a constant state of “what did I forget this morning?”, except the thing you forgot was to go to class almost six months ago and now you’re wondering if that one class you missed is going to be the one to cost you your job or postgrad down the line.

And let’s not forget that the motivation is just gone. We’re all worn out by three years of this. Gone are the bright-eyed youngsters who signed into the portal all those moons ago, they’ve all been replaced by red-eyed, sleep deprived devils who have caffeine for blood and noodles for organs.

But that’s why we all just gotta keep on pushing. Being so close to the end makes us question if anything was worth it and if we should just stop before the finish line. It would be so easy to just pack up now, say “I’m done”, reintegrate into a semi natural routine, and actually sleep in without feeling guilty for once. But if we did, then those bright-eyed youngsters were worn down for nothing. We gotta keep pushing. For them.

Oh, the Exhaustion!

I don’t think many of us are going to miss those Monday 9ams, be it distance or on campus. Even when you have the option to stay in bed and watch your class on Zoom, it’s just so damn difficult bringing yourself to pull out the laptop and watch along.

I guess there’s the whole “it’s hard because it’s worth it” argument, but honestly, fuck that noise! Who cares if it’s worth it, it’s painful at times! Especially when we find ourselves in the penultimate moments of the semester, it’s a mission to just do the work. Almost feels like as soon as our breaks start, they end, and then we’re just more tired than when they began. By the time we get to here, I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re sapped of all motivation. And despite not wanting to, having absolutely zero desire to keep going, we just keep marching on as if we’re all doing just fine. The only issue is, by this point doing “just fine” is not really fine at all.

Mental Health Tingz

Without sleep and motivation comes the depresso espressos, and (despite how cracker that name is) the depresso espressos are not fun at all. Everything just feels fucking shit, we don’t wanna be at uni anymore. First-years, look forward to feeling like this 24/7 once you reach the point us third-years are at.

Of course, I’m joking.

But still, it gets rough. And sometimes the roughness just kinda gets rougher and rougher, without seeming to end. And the only thing we can do is take time away from our work. And when you reach the point where your body is screaming at you to lie the fuck down and not do anything, just listen to it. Our lecturers would rather we sit about playing God of War 3 (or whatever you do when you’re not feeling great) than suffer through exhaustion while we try to complete endless amounts of assignments.

I gotta be honest, I’ve forgotten what I set out to say in this segment. I just hope whoever is reading this knows they’re doing so well despite all the BS the past few years have thrown at us. If you’re still here doing your degree amongst what is basically the apocalypse, you’re killing it and I will buy you a cookie if I meet you.

SWEET MOTHER MERCY! IT’S THE REAL WORLD!

And what comes next for those of us finishing degrees in the next few weeks? That’s right! Actually having to go out into the world and… I don’t know… pay taxes?

What the heck even is being a functioning adult?

Anyway, this point in uni life brings out some bad feelings. I want to look at one in particular however – the whole idea of “what am I if not a student?”.

For the past three to four years, so many of us have been doing uni. Like, that’s our thing. We might have the odd job here and there, maybe we play in a band, perform in a theatre group, or play sports; but at the center of it all is our studies. The past years have seen us slowly and steadily becoming who we want to be, building our identities around the study we do and the fields we aim to go into. The idea of doing anything other than uni is just plain scary. Like, how do we go from this to doing a nine to five, or a placement, or just a job to bide time till we figure out how we’re going to use the degree and skills we’ve learnt?

Real world shit! It’s awful to think about!

But I guess it’ll all be worth it?

Very much probably?

Honestly, it’s so hard to be hopeful when everything is so uncertain. Who would’ve known that we’d be at this point when the decade started? We don’t even know where we’re going to be in the next week, let alone next year. Ultimately, the future is shrouded in fog, but at least we know we’ve made it through three to four years of study, grown the fuck up along the way, and become new versions of ourselves that those youngins would be absolutely stoked with.

So, to end this rant or whatever you want to call it –

You’re doing well, we ain’t got long left.

It’s all going to be so worth it.

Only a few more weeks, and then we can finally get that well deserved sleep in.

But let’s be honest, we’re not sleeping in. When this is done it’s just gonna be pissups without the consequence of Stream telling us we have overdue work in the middle of a party.