I turned twenty-two in August, and this month I’ll be starting second year of uni. My journey to get here has been a bit shaky at times, in my student life I’ve been through challenges and things that from the outside seem invisible. The things I’m referring to are the things that you may be going through and feel alone in it as we so often do. So I want to say this to you: for better or worse, every hard thing you’ve been through, every challenge and obstacle has been faced before. It has been faced by countless people before you and countless people after you. As a twenty-two-year-old I obviously feel over-qualified to dispense advice so here it goes. 

I left school in 2022 and as I faced the future ahead of me I saw very little. By that I mean I failed to recognise my own ambitions, my dreams, the things I wanted. I had no idea what they were yet. I watched everyone around me get unconditional offers to first choice universities and this left me with a strange sense of jealousy, not of the offers to study economics or business, but the certainty in what they wanted. I wanted to want something. I know you may see certainty in all the new faces you’re seeing now but I promise, most people are unsure of themselves well into their adult lives. 

To seventeen-year-old me this felt entirely unique. It was a totally new sensation and one that I could not begin to describe let alone understand. So this pressure and irrational panic-planning led me to make a decision that I feel was not my own. I felt disconnected from the power of that decision.

This feeling of a lack of conviction in my own decisions, this lack of control that I imagined was true, has been a defining characteristic of my student life. And it has left me feeling untethered at times, as if the life I have now is a result of accident, panic, luck or even other people’s decisions. It has taken a long time to firmly believe that my life is a result of the way I live it. 

The single most vital thing I want to get across to you is that your life is yours, where you are now, for better or worse, is a product of you. With some exceptions of course, but the thing I want to get across is not that you are responsible for all the terrible things in your life, but that the good things, the achievements, the offer to study here, the good grades, the degree you will have in a few short years, they are yours. They are your personality and your dreams. And you must look after them.

Everyone feels a portion of the things you may feel at any given time, and most people hide it. So you will never see the secret wars being fought in every head around you. Be patient, be honest, and get on with the things that you want to do. And the life you end up with is yours. If ever you feel that tinge of self-doubt that is so well known to us all, make no mistake, everyone feels doubt, you must remember that you have power. You have agency, you are your own person now. But also please bear in mind, as I’m writing this looking at my new notebooks I bought for the year ahead and looking over at my car keys on the counter, I still think this is all mine through no action of my own. I still think this was luck. But it’s not, your achievements are your own, and reading this slightly condescending article is one hell of an achievement, so well done.