'A concoction of love, loss, and loathing'

No experience quite stokes the thrill or the eagerness - the jump in the blood - as does the beginning of university.

It is a carnival of the new and the unfamiliar, a scandalous parade of everything fabulous and grotesque, and a monumental opportunity for any participant willing to engage with the berserk of student life.

For some, university is a glorious refuge for the intellectual, where thinkers, radicals, and activists converge in a combustible forum of ideas, often in consensus, yet more often in discord. For many people, the university and its ethos of critical thought and scientific inquiry are sacred things, upon which depend not only the standards of academic integrity but indeed the social and political progress of society itself.

For others, university will become a slightly darker arena, a playground of self-discovery and experimentation; every world has its underworld.

For most people however, the experience will prove a delirious mixture of both these worlds, and more - a concoction of love, loss, and loathing where friendship is found, where confidence is gained, and where a lifetime of opportunity is made available to those consumed by the ambition to succeed.

Of course, any such uncivilised experience as that of one’s university years will inevitably incur some experience of regret.

Who among us, looking back on the last 3 or 4 years in college, does not wish to gouge their own eyes out over some embarrassing incident or other: some poorly-timed faux pas or shameful drunken escapade (or, God forbid, accidentally sending a screenshot to the person you were intending to mock instead of to the group chat).

But really, in time, these things will be looked upon with more laughter than regret, and they will eventually crystallise into an anecdote worthy of constant repetition. No, what we will inevitably regret when we reflect upon these years will be the missed opportunities, the chances not seized, and the risks not taken.

To quote Whittier, 'of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been'. Sometimes, for those of us who have completed the sacred cycle of 3 or 4 years in college, or who are nearly there, regret of this kind can come to occupy our thoughts considerably and invoke feelings of great despair or even loss – the loss of what could have been, of what we might have made of ourselves, of the things we might have discovered, if only we had… And so on.

These regrets take many forms: wishing you had given Schols your best shot; not getting involved in that society you were really passionate about; staying in Ireland instead of doing an Erasmus year abroad, etc. Of course, there are little regrets and there are big regrets. But the sense of pathos they invoke in us can be potent.

So to those you who have just started your first year: you are now standing on the very precipice of life. The next 4 or 5 years will likely include some profound moments of joy and sorrow, and everything you can think of in between. University is a place that is aglow with promise. Your only job now is to seize from this college every opportunity you find, to take the hallowed plunge into the depths of everything it has to offer and to relish the sordid act of doing so. You will undoubtedly find yourself embarrassed at times, jubilant at others. And sure, you will have regrets. That’s unavoidable. But the greatest gift college has to offer you is the potential to be able to say ‘I was given every opportunity I could imagine to make the finest of myself. And I took it.’

So take it, and good luck.

[ studenthub@irishtimes.com ]