An Open Letter to my Fellow Matrics

Note: I would just like to say that this article is a personal opinion about my experiences with applying to universities and deciding on my tertiary education. It is in no way intended to be used as a reference when deciding about which university would be best for current university applicants, or to promote any university above another.

For as far back as I can remember, my life was clean-cut. When I was eight years old, strong female authors from the likes of JK Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson impressed on me the magic that words could hold, and I never went anywhere without a novel pressed tightly into the nook of my arm. I had decided even then that my future would consist of writing: writing stories that would capture the imagination of children, or articles that would enchant grown-ups. I spent my entire childhood knowing with absolute certainty which career path I wanted to follow, and in my adolescent mind, it was just that easy.

Until the beginning of this year, I was still steadfast in the belief that this career path would be easy – there would always be demand for writers in all forms, after all. The most important thing would be doing something that I loved. But then, matric arrived… there was a sickening realisation that I had grown up far too quickly, and that it was time to think about the practicalities of actually deciding on a university, and something that was much more difficult than this, deciding on a course to study. This all sounded so easy in my head, and in all of the books that I had ever read, but honestly, it was one of the most difficult things that I have ever had to do.

All my life, people have told me that I am so lucky to know what direction I want to go in. It is supposed to be as easy as that, isn’t it? Except that it wasn’t. I was very quickly brought down to earth as I was faced with the realities that most South African universities don’t cater to the field of journalism at all in terms of undergraduate studies. I have cried many tears over the fact that the time has nearly arrived to leave home, the home that I have lived in my entire life, and that I envisioned studying out of. Although I know the necessity of spreading my wings and studying at the university best equipped for the field of media, the reality is still harsh at the fact that this university will not be anywhere close to home.

This past month, though, was probably the toughest step in my journey so far. When the school holidays began, my mom and I arranged to do a road trip down to the Cape in order to have a look at the University of Cape Town. They had a very good Bachelor of Arts programme that included Media and Writing as one of their majors. After careful consideration, I had set my heart on this university, and I was very excited to see it in the flesh for the first time. In the span of twenty minutes, however, I watched my dreams slowly dissolve. The day was a bit of a disaster, nothing like I had planned, and because of this, I couldn’t really see myself studying there. From the get-go, the traffic was beyond hectic, and the sheer size of the campus was extremely intimidating to me. I could not imagine myself studying here, straight from a family environment, and then being thrust into a city of this magnitude, and being happy in it.

In a heartbeat, my plans for next year crumbled. It was extremely difficult to cope with this, because I had so perfectly envisioned what my life would be like, and now once again, everything was changing. I couldn’t really envision myself at UCT after I had seen it that day, and my options for other universities were quite limited in terms of degree choices.

The next day, we arranged to go and visit Stellenbosch. After spending some time walking around there, I was very impressed. The campus was beautiful, and the facilities immaculate, but there was one big problem. Journalism could only be taken as an Honours course, and it did not really matter what your undergraduate course was, because they accepted students from all fields of study. On top of this, only about 25 applicants are accepted, so nobody’s chances are ever guaranteed. The course is set like this in order to give students a chance to experience other fields of work before deciding on actively pursuing a degree and career in journalism.

Even after all of this, I was more than willing to study here if I had a chance of getting into the honours programme, but after scouring the undergraduate degrees… nothing. I could find nothing that I wanted to study. In an ideal world, a course like a Bachelor of Arts in Language and Culture would be incredible and I would really enjoy it, but I had a shock realisation that I needed to be practical about this decision. What if I studied that course for three years, and then didn’t get into the honours programme… would I be able to make a living on a staple diet of English literature and French studies? The answer, no matter how hard I took it, was probably a no.

The following day, I was moody, and irritable, and just very, very sad, because I was so unsure. For so many years now, I was steadfast in what I wanted to do, and I was ambitious in working to achieve it. I had never wavered in what my goal was, but in my youth, I had never thought about the method I would take to actually get there.

The next day, we were once again in Cape Town, and without me knowing it, my mom pulled into the university’s parking lot. Although at the time, I did not really want to be there, I am so thankful to her for doing just that. Together, we took some time to walk around the campus, and simply just get a feel for the atmosphere there. Thanks to a very nice secretary at humanities, I was even allowed to tour the building. Slowly, I regained the sense of why I had fallen in love with the campus and the top-notch undergraduate degrees that it offered. I tried to imagine myself as a student there, and now, I could. It was completely different, and I was reminded once again that an attitude can make literally all of the difference in determining your reception to a new situation.

As I write this, I have an appointment to go and see Rhodes University and have a look around the campus in a few days. I am nervous, yet very excited, but in the same breath, I was extremely inspired to write this letter. The message that I am trying to reiterate to everybody who is reading this, is that it is okay not to know. These are really big decisions, and they are definitely not easy. It is okay not to be in control of your future at this very moment, or if you are still in the process of deciding what you want to do.

All my life, I saw my future as being clear-cut, as knowing what I wanted to do, which made being confronted with all of this all the more difficult. But the nature of the beast is that these choices are not easy, and they are not clear-cut, like I thought they would be. They are messy and difficult and sometimes you will feel like you don’t know what to do, and don’t know how to move forward. But in the end, this is what life is like, and why it is so beautiful. Always know in your heart that things will work out like they are supposed to, and at the beginning of next year, no matter how hard things might seem now, you will be enrolled in a varsity course, and then, life truly begins.

As I write this, I still don’t know quite what the future will hold. I still do not know what university I will end up going to, or exactly what course I am going to take. Despite being a huge control freak by nature, for the first time, I am actually okay with this, because sometimes, you just have to be. I don’t know whether I will go to Rhodes, or UCT, or even Stellenbosch. There is, however, one thing that I do know, and that is that I love writing, and I want to do it for the rest of my life. And whatever university will best give me the tools to go and pursue that goal, is where I will find myself. And that, my fellow matrics, is the only thing that really matters. Find what you love, and grab onto it with both hands. Fight for it. Because in the greater scheme of things, the thing that matters most of all, above studying and jobs and even earning money, is your happiness.