Things no-one could have prepared me for as an English honours student.

With the end of my undergraduate study approaching, I’ve been thinking about how the last three years have gone by. From reading Harry Potter at the age of nine to now writing this blog, I was always fascinated by literature and books, I used to read A LOT, write in journals and always had some book in my hands.

So me choosing English honours wasn’t a surprise to anyone; I mean how hard could it be right? I love literature, everyone said that you read all the time while studying English, that couldn’t be an issue… right?

Boy! how wrong was I?

It’s not always about the aesthetic of picking up a story with a mug of coffee or tea in your hands and getting lost in another universe, it’s a tiny bit more than that.

While the degree and the course was amazing, the curriculum and syllabus was such an enlightening experience; there were just a few things no-one could’ve prepared me for.

• The amount of notes and citations I had to go through.

While reading the books and poetries, we had to critically analyse them, and sometimes only our analysis wasn’t enough, that’s what we were there to learn, going through citations and notes proved to he tiring and not as interesting as reading the actual text.

• The course wasn’t just about literature.

Now obviously, I knew this, but the in depth study of history and politics to understand the context and timeline of the texts, took me by surprise. As readers we usually just read the text for the storyline and plot but as an English honours student, we had to go through societal as well as individual changes behind the writing of the texts.

• Reader’s Block.

Okay, this had NEVER happened to me before, and I was actually surprised how badly it effected me, I stopped feeling motivated to read the texts related to my course, I would read other books, and hop onto Wattpad to read stories, while the books I was supposed to read just sat there in my “to be read" pile.

Even though all these were not too bad, but in the moment they had me feeling like I did something wrong by choosing the course.

Honestly I wouldn’t change anything for the world. After making it out of the bad days, it was just amazing professors, amazing stories (and sometimes rash YouTube summaries *) (*I am not proud of this).

To anyone starting, or currently pursuing anything literature related. It’s okay, it’s normal. We all go through this, well, most of us.. but in a few years you’re just going to look back at these times and remember the all nighters and the debates about whether Jude or Tess was better, and which character do you relate to the most. The only advice I can think about giving you is that when your teachers said, Wikipedia isn’t a good source for literature students, they were right. Just don’t rely on it.. please.