Sitting in an Indian restaurant I casually picked up a copy of FHM and flicked through the pages. Bypassed the lingerie (I didn’t dwell on the pages, I swear) and I ended up gaping at the magazine feature: 75 most adventurous activities for men. Ranked somewhere in the sixties is this: to live at the Antarctic base camp.
Hence my revelation of the day. I’ve been in Queenstown since, well, vaguely a week ago and already I’m enslaved by the temptation of staying here to live and work, at least for a short period of time. Here’s the catch: I still have two years of university to take care of. Walking past a poster, aptly displayed at a tourist information store, which goes ‘can I never go home?’, I can envision myself featured in the same picture looking pitiful, begging not to be shipped back to London to complete my degree. But what choice do I have? Or do I have a choice?
Dilemma. ARRRRRGH!!!
The decision has just been made: Laura, having stayed at my hostel for the last week and was Wellington-bound tomorrow on a job hunt, has finally decided to remain in Queenstown to live and work. The atmosphere among the long-term residents is reaching ecstasy. Meanwhile, hitting the roof and soaring into the heavens is my jealousy level. For days, I’ve been resisting the urge to leave ‒ the guys at the hostel have even started a bet on whether or not I’d actually make it out of Queenstown by Monday.
Such was the lure of the snowy mountains mirrored by the pristine lake, the two-degrees-of-separation that produces some of the most miraculous chance encounters I’ve ever come upon, that the town of few strangers ‒ as I’d like to refer Q’town ‒ transfigured into deadweight ever since the anticipation of my departure began to sink in. What seems heavier still a burden is the obligation to return to university.
But Ma, I don’t wanna go to school…
There are reasons why I’d resist heading back to uni that are rather personal ‒ disinterest with degree, disagreement with ethics of oil and mining industry, competitiveness ‒ which I would rather not discuss. Instead, I’ll pull out some travel-specific rants, a few of mine but mostly those I hear a lot from fellow students/ex-students.
Practicality plays a large part ‒ there’s a reason why language students undertaking year abroad programmes tend to outshine those educated entirely on a classroom basis. Same with normal day skills: it’s a common trend that gap year go-ers have better knacks in finance handling, fluency and social proficiency, problem-solving, more resilience and perseverance, and, most importantly, confidence, than kids heading to college/university straight after secondary education. Encountering these individuals quite often get doubters like me thinking, why spend years practising a narrow field while others manage to achieve and learn such a broad range of assets? Why dwell in the theoretical when exposure to practicality is a legitimate shortcut to learning? (Editor's note: obviously, when I meant practicality, I didn’t mean drinking oneself to liver failure night and night again and call it a ‘gap year’.)
Then we have peer pressure. As much as one feels the burning need to rise above academic competition, with the escalating vogue of gap years and travelling many university students may feel peer-pressured into wanting to do more travelling. But where’s the balance? The ‘opportunities’ a student traveller can seize to do some trotting between semesters quite often overlap with exam revisions, compelling coursework deadlines and personal affairs neglected during term time. It’s a balance I’m still struggling to find, still struggling to remain convinced that it’ll work, and still struggling to abolish. The only solution seems to be quitting university altogether. Not to mention loans, bank overdrafts, lost job opportunities and incomes, long-term financial difficulty that can easily grapple one’s appetite for travel.
In the UK at least a university education is such an over-glorified affair that, to most youngsters, attending university is a logical and essential stage in their lives. It isn’t, as proclaimed by many successful ‒ in terms of both wealth and contentment ‒ individuals. Isn’t it a sheet of paper by the end of a day, garnished with photos of your silly grin, unfitting furry robe and cheese-plate hat?
Counter riposte
If university is literally a pile of doss then I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post ‒ I would’ve submitted my withdrawal request a while back. It’s not all complaints ‒ university life does have a few tricks that keep us wannabe vagabonds and our loyalty in check.
If anything, consider the social life. Consider the stability of friendships, instead of the fleeting sort that keeps wrecking your heart whilst on the road. Whether you are a friend-collector or a close-clique kind of mate, your time at university would most likely be an active period for your social life, if not its pinnacle. Not to mention potential travelling companions and partners. Walking amid club stands as a fresher/freshman, you would realise how much goes on within the boundaries of your campus besides academia.
These opportunities to find new interests and hone new skills are often unique, or come at great costs should you miss out and decide to pursue later on in life. If it wasn’t for Imperial College, my alma mater, I wouldn’t have picked up fencing, I wouldn’t have been introduced to hitchhiking, and I wouldn’t have worked for felix as travel editor and fallen in love with travel writing. University life is by-no-means single-lane learning. There are skills you can acquire, for instance living away from home for the very first time, owning and maintaining your own car, paying the bills, co-existing with strangers living under the same roof.
Some skills gained while travelling are as likely to be obtained as while attending university ‒ all down to individual circumstances. If you’re lucky enough to be participating in a study abroad/Erasmus programme, then you shouldn’t be worrying about the lack of travels in the first place. And to introduce a little bit of realistic thinking here, in such times of financial difficulty that glossy sheet of paper ‒ you can keep the photo to yourself ‒ does boost your employability.
Specific jobs popular among travellers often require a good degree ‒ good examples include English-teaching jobs in Japan that often, as well as an English-teaching qualification, demand a degree certificate as part of their basic employment requirements.
Time to know my place
Laura has been out of university for quite a few years now. To say that I’m jealous of her is to say that I’m jealous of my future self. But who am I to deny that my travelling future self won’t look back and envy me for the university years-to-come? Heading back, heading towards the familiar unknown, may well be an adventure I’ll learn to treasure. Besides, it’s something I’ve started ‒ I may as well grant it a finale and standing ovation before moving on to the next opera.
Did you drop out of university to go travelling? Are you in university but wanting to see more than the library? Drop us a comment!
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