Editorial: On being a mess

Credit: Kirsten Colligan

If you’ve arrived on campus this September feeling totally out of your depth, then we, lurking in the empty takeaway box-ridden Glasgow Guardian office as we write this editorial, are right there with you.

In our combined six years of university, we’ve missed more lectures than we’ve attended, darkened the doorsteps of countless counselling services and GP surgeries, and even dropped out altogether. (But then again, it was Edinburgh University, so who can really blame Laurie for that?) Laurie spent her second year in bed, and Georgina spent hers getting slapped with a bipolar disorder diagnosis. We’ve missed exams, aced exams, and even sent essays to exes instead of tutors (Georgina can take full credit for that).

If you’re wondering if this editorial is just a list of the many ways we’ve managed to fuck up our own university experiences, then you’d be absolutely correct. But there’s a point to this, we swear.

Somehow, despite all the aforementioned shared disasters, we’ve both managed to reach the final years of our studies here with all the friends, drunken memories and successes that everyone is promised before they start university. It just didn’t happen immediately, but then it rarely ever does.

The expectations placed upon Freshers’ Week and first year are impossible to live up to, so don’t spend unnecessary time agonising over it if yours doesn’t live up to your own.

We can’t guarantee that your first year will be the time of your life, because if we did then we’d be telling you a barefaced lie – something that journalists never do. What we can guarantee, though, is that you’ll go on to make all kinds of mistakes and memories of your own. Eventually, after countless skipped classes and vomiting somewhere on West Regent Street (everyone does it), you’ll find your own place here.

No first year experience is the same, so try not to worry too much if you are wanting to drop out, or you get slapped with a bipolar disorder diagnosis, or anything else that diverts from the canonical expected Freshers’ experience. Don’t worry that your time at university will become a complete disaster. Take it from two seasoned, professional disasters: you’ll settle.

What we’re saying is if two people with the combined functionality of half an old woman can become Editors-in-Chief of a leading student newspaper and feel settled and happy in a city as big as Glasgow, then you definitely have a chance too.

But if you don’t know where to start, or if you’re interested in student journalism, getting drunk or making friends that aren’t your terrible flatmates, then come along to our Contributors Meeting, every Thursday at 5:30 pm in Room 208 of the McIntyre Building. (If you’ve paid any attention to our tenure as Views Editors last year, you’ll see that we’re especially keen to increase our mental health coverage, and our meetings are conveniently timed in a way that doesn’t require anyone to get out of bed before the late afternoon). Please also join us for our social afterwards, so that any illusions of professionality you may have of us can be immediately shattered once we’ve had a few too many.