Hogeschool and the quarter-life crisis

Yesterday came a day which I have been dreading for the whole summer.

As the leaves in front of my window grow ever more amber in their hue, the temperature drops and the most predictable thing about the rain today is that it will indeed be unpredictable.

I hope you liked my use of italics there, I’m working on it.

Anyway, the sun is shining this morning and I have the most inspiring cool breeze upon my neck as I sit with my back to the window writing this piece. In fact, in many ways, a little sunshine and a cool breeze is what gets me going the most when writing.

Today I want to tell you a little about my experience, thoughts, and the likes of university so far, and perhaps look to the future a little bit, for old times’ sake.

I am currently studying European Studies and German at ZUYD Hogeschool in Maastricht. I ended up there because-paired with a little international-British-student stuff-, frankly, my grades were not good enough to get into the university. The day I found out, I was in New York, working at Camp Herrlich, an experience that I will never forget, and a story for another time. But either way, I was absolutely devastated. Well, thankfully, after some hard work behind the scenes (I was managing the kids) on behalf of my loving parents, I was offered a place at ZUYD. And yes, I could have stayed in England and studied at a non-Russel group university there, but I was absolutely not into that idea.

The Dutch Hogeschool system is not like anything I have ever seen in the UK, but I am informed that we used to have something similar. In essence, it’s allows a more “practical” take on studying for a university-level course, with more group work, hands-on experience, trips, et cetera. In all fairness, it’s pretty good for my style of learning-and often unfortunate cynicism of the current structure and curriculums of our education systems globally. Alas, at the end of the last academic year in June, that ever-reemerging, eminent and distasteful cynicism came back to haunt me once more. I simply felt that I had not truly accomplished anything, bar in my personal life, and that I was working towards something so useless and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Why am I studying anything at university in the first place? Something that seems so fabricated for the 21st century, and so irrelevant in terms of actual skills and job prospects in the future. Do I even really want to be a diplomat, or am I just saying that to please my parents, and prestigify my status in society as a whole?

Please note, I say none of this to knock the fabulous lecturers, researchers, teachers, and peers that I see daily at university, it is merely a reflection of my own thoughts at the time. I realised once again that I felt so trapped by the expectations of others, and that I had not truly taken any decisions that pushed me towards where I truly wanted to be in life.

But then I encountered what is perhaps an even greater problem… I no longer knew what I truly wanted. I knew that I was sad, trapped, bored, and feeling lonely, but I did not know which direction to even begin to go. It was around that time that I encountered the following piece of wisdom-please forgive me, for I have forgotten exactly where from, however I noted it on a piece of paper that has sat on my desk ever since-: “The problem is, to achieve the highest levels, you have to give up proportional amounts of the things you hoped the achievements would get you. There comes a time when the hard work you have to do is learning that you can’t work any harder any longer, and that you have to change what got you here to what will get you where you wanna go”.

I pondered on this for a month or so, meanwhile making progress on building this website, working, and visiting family a bit, which certainly helped calm my nerves.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to do over the next year to “find myself” again— that did include very briefly considering a change in courses, or university, which I decided against. I called some friends, and had some constructive conversations with them and family. I tapped into the creative side of my brain, and took pictures, read lots, drew, and wrote songs behind my piano. I did not study anything related to my studies for one second, which was something that I assured myself and everybody I knew that I’d keep up with during the short summer break.

Nevertheless, I believe that all of my efforts may have paid off. At the risk of summarising the ending all too hastily- schnell-kurz-gesaging it- I ultimately decided that I was indeed in a good place, and that a few more years of study wouldn’t hurt as a backup plan. I’d still work on whatever business venture happened to be at hand at the time, and I’d work on myself and my studies in the meantime. So, as a result of the acceptance and decision to own my past choices, I enthusiastically attended university yesterday.

Dare I say, it wasn’t so bad after all, just a break and a shift of mindset is all that I needed. I’ll still work on my own projects, but this year I’ll definitely be dedicating much more time to my study too… and perhaps that isn’t such a bad idea.

Anyway, that was much longer than I expected, and I am not totally comfortable with the way I wrapped everything up just yet. I’m still experimenting with my personal style, and it’ll take me a while to fall into a pattern of consistent writing and storytelling the way I truly want to, but for now, this is the best I can do to get out there and learn.

I won’t keep you any longer now,
See you soon,
Alex