An Eye Opener

During a conversation today I heard this comment "University is like a three year long 18-30 holiday. Drinking, sex and if you're lucky a bit of studying".

Initially, this shocked me but after a short period of reflection I was forced to agree. For many of my peer group it would appear that the social aspect of university life is of the highest importance. Studying is little more than an inconvenience.

This reminds me of the long lost past. When I was at secondary school and dinosaurs still roamed the length of the A10 Great Cambridge Road. We, the boys of my class at Kingsmead Secondary Modern, all lusted after one or more girls of our year. It was pretty much a struggle to remember what our own names were when we watched the girls run out in their cute pleated mini-skirted PE kits. Only frequent cold showers prevented many incidents of Spontaneous Human Combustion! School trips were opportunities to get “closer” to our female peers, usually with a uniform lack of success I might add! Much valuable learning time was lost to lust even in those dark days before the invention of sex and skin tight leggings!

So back to today and university where the hormones are raging, the booze flowing like Niagara Falls and drunken couplings so frequent that you could break you neck by slipping on the used condoms. Being a married chap, I feel quite able to stand above all this. But I must remember that my peer group haven't had the luxury of my own life experiences. They are, in most cases, 20 years younger than myself. Getting drunk, high and screwed is far more interesting than the complexities of media law or the Byzantine complexities of the EU parliament. Perhaps I need to step back just a bit and let them have their fun. Ignore the interminable tales of sexual conquests, super hot vindaloo consumption and group vomiting. They're young and should enjoy themselves.

Why should I be so uncharacteristically charitable? Because while the rest of the student body are wasting their time on immediate gratification of their basest desires I can get on, earn the best marks I can and (hopefully) steal a march on getting a well paid position upon (or before) graduation! I suspect that many of my peer group may still be drunk, high and diseased come graduation day, 2012.