Finishing uni is a lot like suffering a loss: that is, the loss of someone who made your life a living hell, turned you into a temporary alcoholic and sent you so broke you seriously considered illegal businesses as a legitimate contingency plan for when you don’t get a job post-uni.

However, you probably won’t realise until you reach the other side that you loved uni, and now that it’s on the brink of being gone, you’re going to grieve it.

Denial

Denial helps us to survive the loss. In this instance, denial could mean subconsciously waking up at 6.30am one gloomy Tuesday morning, packing your laptop in your bag, checking the times for your next bus, hopping on said bus, getting all the way to uni and realising that you graduated two months ago and that your whole life is a lie.

Denial can also involve simply refusing to accept that you’re finishing uni by looking at other options: postgrad degrees, masters, failing your current degree with the knowledge that you’ll have to do it again. You know, just your standard nonsense.

Anger

Once you’ve gotten rid of all the codswallop, “I’m going to do postgrad” false optimism, you’ll come to perhaps the most difficult stage: anger. It’s difficult for those around you because they can’t really understand why you’re acting the way you are BECAUSE THEY’RE F***ING DICKHEADS WHO DON’T BLOODY CARE!! WHO NEEDS EM, RIGHT?!

Well, firstly, you’re so wrong. Anger is 100 per cent a necessary part of the healing process, but take it out in effective outlets. Take up boxing, destroy all Minion toys at your local shopping centre, threaten your tutor to fail you “or else” – stuff that will really help you.

Bargaining

Finally, a stage of post-uni grief where you put to use a skill you’ve learned and mastered over your years as a student. Students are masters of bargaining due to living so long on the cheap, so you’ll probably subconsciously aim to do the same to get uni back. You’ll make promises to whatever deity you believe in (God, Buddha, Allah, Beyonce) that you know for damn sure you’re not going to keep, but you’re hoping to fool them into thinking otherwise.

“I’ll never weigh mangoes as apples through the Woolies self-serve again if I can go to back to uni,” you’ll snigger to yourself. This is a stage you’ll probably want to get through ASAP – the only thing that awaits you is disappointment.

Depression

Think of it as a quarter life crisis. Not being at uni has allowed you to stop stressing about assessments, which leaves more room to stress about not being at uni. You’ll question the very fabric of your own existence. You’ll cry helplessly because you think you did the wrong degree. You’ll wonder when this pain will end. You’ll probably turn to the bottle for some sort of temporary relief from your busy life of doing nothing, but this depression won’t last forever, fam.

Acceptance

You’re still turning to the bottle for some sort of temporary relief from your busy life of doing nothing, but you’re OK with it. Talk about full circle.

—

Jackson Langford is studying a Bachelor of Communication degree at the University of Newcastle and is the rightful heir to the throne.

(Lead image: Un Bolshakov, Flickr Creative Commons license)