I Just Graduated from the World’s Top University

Was it actually worth it? (Hint: not really; at least, not in the way you’d think.)

Introducing Myself

I’ve always wanted to do academia. As a teenager, I was always under the impression that I didn’t like talking to people, that I didn’t like sports, and that I did like studying.

My, how that has changed.

Tomorrow is my first day at work. My job essentially involves talking to people all the time. When not working, my primary hobby is exercise.

And you’d have to pay me a lot of money to go back to studying.

You see, I’ve just graduated from Cambridge University — consistently one of the world’s top 3 or 5 universities, occasionally reaching #1. And I’m not entirely sure, looking back, whether it was worth it. Though it really depends on what you are evaluating it for.

Do you go to university to increase your earning potential? To open up job opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise had? To learn a subject in depth? To have an excuse to hang out with friends and play sports or go to societies and activism events without worrying about your employer firing you?

That bit is really up to you. In this article, I’ll explain why I don’t think that going to the world’s top university was necessarily worth it — but why I’m glad I went anyway.

What I Learned at University

You’d be mistaken if you thought that the primary thing I learnt at university was everything my lecturers told me. In actual fact, graduation was just two weeks ago, and already I’ve forgotten almost everything I was ever told by anyone in a lecture theatre.

For me, university wasn’t about learning. I went into university already feeling like I had learned enough to get by in life, and I fairly quickly ascertained that a future in academia simply wasn’t for me. It was just too specific, too nit-picky, and had too much bureaucracy.

And it simply didn’t feel like it mattered anymore.

Instead, I spent three years at university effectively doing everything I could that was not academic but which I would not get a chance to do outside of university.

I rowed almost every day and made it into the first men’s boat at my College. I coached rowing, and I ended up the Captain at my boatclub.

I got involved with student politics and became the undergraduate President of my College, too.

I became a vegan — and not only that, but a vegan activist. I stood out on the streets at activism events, I gave talks, and I was outspoken about veganism in general.

I also got involved in gardening, kayaking, climbing, running, and all sorts of other activities.

Academic work was important, and my academics were the reason I was at university in the first place. But they were not the reason for my continued existence in that environment.

In terms of what I learnt at university, even going to one of the best universities in the world (according to global rankings like QS, anyway), I have to say: it was not worth it.

But in terms of who I became… well, that’s another question entirely.

Who I Became at University

I’m starting a job tomorrow — yes, literally tomorrow — as a campaigner for a vegan charity.

I’m now an adult — yes, literally an adult — responsible for my own social standing, my finances, my food, fitness, private life, and professional life.

Both of these facts are utterly absurd to me. And yet, strangely, they are also perfectly normal.

The person I have become over the last three years is almost unrecognisable compared to the person that went to university all that time ago. As I mentioned, I was never an overtly confident and extroverted teenager. I actually spent most of my teenage years buried in books and my studies, never properly coming up for air, and not feeling like I was the most sociable of characters.

Typical nerd. That was me.

A third of a decade later, and I am a new man. I am not just significantly better at talking to people than I once was — I actually enjoy it. I am not just significantly fitter than I once was — but I really get a kick out of a good workout and my overall health and fitness.

These are the things I got out of university. It changed me as a person, and not in the way one would expect university to change them.

I did not become more embroiled in my studies, but rather, less so. I had the option to really double-down on the intellectual investments made in my teenage years; yet, in my early twenties, I decided to instead dig myself out of the hole that I had spent so long carefully crafting.

At the end of the day…

Were my intellectual endeavours early in life a waste of time? Absolutely not. I got a lot out of them. I feel I learned how to think, write, and reason. These are skills (I hope) that are like riding a bike.

But, for me, my time in academia has ended. I flogged the horse (or some more vegan-friendly expression) as hard as I could and for as long as I could, and going to university where I did and when I did was one of the best decisions I could have made.

What I haven’t so far mentioned is that the people I met there — the friendships I made and hope to keep — are some of the best people I know. My rowing buddies, especially.

In terms of those people, and in terms of myself as a person, the university experience was worth it. But you don’t need to go to university to meet great people and change who you are. University was simply my excuse to do so.

Find your excuse to reinvent your life from the ground up, to find a purpose, and to surround yourself with great folk. That excuse might be travelling the world, finding a new, better job, or, indeed, going to university.

In terms of your finances or your actual educated-ness, perhaps uni will be a waste of time. But that certainly isn’t the end of the story.