For Anyone Who Thinks University Isn't Hard Work, Read This

Aside from the probability that most students will be wealthier than the average first time buyer or working class citizen, thanks to their immunity from the credit crunch (for the time being anyway) they continue to live in more luxury than most would imagine. On top of their loans, most students will also work to afford other essentials like car insurance, food and print outs/photocopies from the library. I once assumed that printing in university would be free since we pay over three grand a year, but no. There is one myth however, that I must endeavour to put to a deserved death...the laziness of students.

For the last six weeks I have been slaving away on a university features assignment. We were told that we had to write three feature articles at a total of 5000 words and that we had only six weeks to complete them. The features had to be written in the style of three different and established publications of our choice. We were also to choose original and current stories that had not been reported on before. Not only did they all have to be investigative features, they had to include over ten different interviewees including major opinion formers, pressure groups and leading government MPs as well as interviews from the average Jo Blogs.

Six weeks adds up to two weeks per feature, not including the time that we would need to find and speak to our contacts (exceedingly difficult if you're trying to get to any senior politician or police spokesperson) and think of what the hell we were going to write about. After we completed this we then had to lay out the magazine on a computer programme in the style of the publication we had written our article for. Then we had to write a production analysis of how we thought the whole process had gone and hand that in too.

After coming down with Flu from the stress during the third week, I had to sit two shorthand exams, an NCTJ law exam and do a presentation. Oh, and I also had to apply for work experience and research my dissertation proposal.

So if you wonder why students sleep in so late or why they have permanent colds, don't judge right away. It may not be that they have been out boozing all week, feeding their immune system with regular instalments of chili drenched kebab and cheesy chips. It could be that they have spent the last month dutifully banging keys in front of over worked computer keyboards whilst trying to fit in their commitments to the time hungry hockey club/ bar job/ university newspaper.

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