When you look at something, and say to yourself, ‘I could never do anything like that’.
When I was small, I said I want to be an architect. I wasn’t exceptionally bright or arty, and no one in my family had been to university – but I really loved architecture! My education consisted of great teachers and tutors who supported my uphill fight to succeed in GCSEs and A levels, where multiple times I said I couldn’t do it. I had extra help from my tutors, and many hours spent doing things I really didn’t want to – because then I could study what I love. And, as a poster outside one of my college classrooms once quoted, ‘If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life’.
And now, having successfully completed the first year of my degree, I still look at the work produced by the second and third year students and say, ‘Well, I wish I could do something like that’. But, if one year ago I could show myself the project I have just completed… well, you know exactly what I would have said!
University won’t teach you how to stop saying, ‘I could never do anything like that’, nor teach you everything. But the truth is, at university they open a door into another world and then back out again, and whilst inside you have evolved, and it is you who teaches yourself to say, ‘I can do it’.
With international professionals and real-world experts as your tutors, surrounded by close friends in this whirlwind experience, that really transforms your experience and impacts you. A personal impact where each inspiring day is about being at uni, a place where you want to learn, and so each and every day is filled with the excitement shared by thousands of others who also know that they are not just surrounded by, but immersed in a community of people who all know, ‘I can do it!’
And, in a world of inherent self-pessimism, wouldn’t it just be a breath of new life to be able to look at something and say to yourself, ‘I can do this’.
So, if you’re being bombarded with terrifying details about university and the decisions of a lifetime, and you just think to yourself ‘it’s not for me’, well think about what you love, what you love to learn, and ask yourself, ‘is it not for me, or am I just saying that because I feel I could never do anything like that?’ Because if so, this is the exact liberating moment to grab the opportunity with both hands and say ‘yes, I can do this’!
