I Coasted Through My University Degree

A lesson in intentionality

The day I arrived at University, I realized I didn’t belong there. That feeling likely resonates with many undergraduates leaving home at 18 for a taste of independence, to study hard and party harder.

But it was something else that kept me up at night for the first few weeks, not just my high-school boyfriend dumping me by text message two days in. It was that I didn’t care about being there.

This was 2003. The UK Prime Minister at the time was famous for pushing a higher education agenda on the working-middle classes of the country. It was the accepted norm that you went to University, regardless of your ambitions in life.

It was also cheap — my education was free; I just had to cover my living expenses. So I went, thinking I’d figure things out later on; no harm done.

My school grades were good, and I wanted out of my small life in a small town. I wanted the city University experience. I was OK at English, so it was decided many years before — a combination of my enjoyment of reading and writing, and my parents believing I would be the next JK Rowling — that English would be my subject of choice.

I assumed that I’d find a whole raft of people like me on my course — people whose primary purpose of University life was to leave home and meet new people, not to study. Or at least, study enough to pass, but not take it too seriously.

I was wrong.

The friends I made on the course spent their time in the library. They gained work experience in the field of work they were interested in. They took it seriously.

I slept through many of my lectures, and I didn’t contribute to seminars. In my final year, my dissertation tutor didn’t even know who I was. In my final meeting with him before graduation, he thought I was the other tall blonde girl in my year working on a piece on Middle English, whereas I’d spent many months working on an essay about James Joyce.

When my friends were worrying about final exams, locked up in their rooms day after day, not sleeping, not eating, I was watching Australian soap operas and spending weekends with my boyfriend.

I graduated with honours and a 2:1 — the second-highest award you can achieve in a UK-based degree from one of the country’s top 10 universities.

I achieved it with indifference. I did what was expected of me, of what I expected of myself, but little else. There was no intention.

At the time, I was proud. Despite shortcomings in the attitude department, I had worked hard enough. I achieved an average of 63 points, 60 being the minimum for a 2:1, so I was comfortably in the 2:1 bracket. Other friends had worked to the point of exhaustion and achieved a higher score than me, but still a 2:1 grade. On paper, we were the same. I figured I had worked the exact right amount.

But I didn’t deserve such a high grade because my work had no heart.

I just knew how to game the system. I had adopted the same practices at school to achieve good grades. I was great at short term memory and strategy, so I knew how to remember what I needed just enough to pass an exam, then the information would fly out, deadened by the consumed celebratory alcohol. I have been known to read books twice because I remember nothing about them.

I have an English degree, but I can’t tell you what the present perfect tense is (I had to Google this to see if it was even a thing).

I was an imposter. I thought I was on a level playing field with those around me, but it wasn’t true. They had worked hard towards their goals; I had coasted towards mine. And once I started to look for a job, the cracks in the façade began to show.

This Isn’t a Story About Coasting a University Course. It’s a Lesson in Intentionality

A lack of intention in my late teens and early twenties made for a tough few years. When my peers were securing their dream jobs, I took one in a crappy recruitment firm with questionable work practices because it was all I could get.

My lack of intention rumbled on, making me miserable. I looked for new jobs but could never secure interviews. I blamed it on external factors — the 2008 financial crash, the competition for jobs, the fact that the recruiters were just wrong about me.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-late twenties, quit corporate life and started my own business that I realized that it was lack of intention that was the problem. I just didn’t care enough before, and it had shown.

Once I started to care about something — in my case, the wonderfully geeky world of wine — and I became more intentional in everything I did, life got much better. My finances improved. My happiness grew. I owned my decisions, and I gained strength in that knowledge.

But while my own intentionality grew, others around me lost theirs.

It was almost like my peers demonstrated enough intention in their early years to get onto that corporate treadmill, then stopped. The marriages — and divorces — came. Kids arrived, regardless of if it was the right decision for the couple. Then the house and the car, both of which grew bigger every few years whether they needed to or not. They climbed the corporate ladder but hated every minute of it.

Intention = Better Decisions = a Better Life

Society praises intention in young adults but begins to disregard it as we grow older. Phrases like ‘it’s just what you do’ and ‘we have kids now, so we can’t do that’ are banded about. We have forgotten that many of us have the choice to be more intentional in our decisions, the big and the small.

Of course, in my case, I rather wish I’d worked this out in my late teens — it would have saved me my wilderness years.

This stands if you’re 30, 40 or 50 as much as it does when you’re 20. It’s never too late to take stock of your life, to think hard about it and to assess if it is really and truly the best fit for you.

If you take anything from my story, let it be this; if intention is the key, don’t lose it down the drain too early.

The Mini Post-Grad Survival Guide

A 5-day email course with tips on budgeting, investing, and productivity for 20-somethings. Sign up for free.