Passports are Now Officially on the Reading Lists

Conveniently located, mainland Europe emerges as a natural Reading Week destination for many students. It probably wouldn’t rock the boat (or plane) if this week was known by a more appropriate name: ‘Travel Abroad and Ignore Coursework Week.’ 

However, as a Scottish student with continental Europe no more accessible to me than at any other point in my life, I find myself a LARPer of this attitude. I curse myself for my naivety in assuming that students used reading week for its intended purpose: reading?

This quaint little University has a reputation for its international student population who seem to bring their international idea of what a holiday looks like along with them. For many of these students, travelling is an ordinary ordeal: Folks abroad have plenty of empty rooms that need filling and casual parental wealth to fund the trip. However, as a Scottish student, I tend to forget that I am not the same — holidays have always been a luxury, something to save up for and look forward to all year.

There is an obvious pressure at university to form proper friendships. So, in an environment where everyone is trying to find their people, inviting someone on their Reading Week frolic has become a quick and efficient confirmation to themselves, and others, that they’ve made it. Travel experience is social currency, which, once exchanged, shows your friendship is serious. 

Yet, as someone who is financed by student loans and some s****ty term-time job, I don’t have the disposable income to throw away on holiday. The hours I lose studying to working are ones I should be making up for during Reading Week. But given the composition of mixed-nationality friendship groups in the University, I’m presented with a problem. Suddenly, the ‘What are you doing for Reading week?’ question is quickly replaced with ‘Want to go away?’ With my own supply of international friends, even a quick hop across the English Channel to stay at their family home is still £200 spent on flights that would’ve previously been a month's food shop. 

And then, of course: FOMO. Big, bold, horrifying. With everyone away and being comfortably loud about it on social media, the fear that I am missing out on some travel/ friendship/aesthetic lifestyle creeps up on me as I attempt to vacation in the library. So, as my bank account gently weeps, I turn a blind eye to any shortening funds. Instead, someone with a voice suspiciously similar to mine says, ‘I’m so down...’ Weird. Yet again, my mysterious American alter-ego has won. 

Don't get me wrong, I like travelling; I even have a map in my room to prove it. However, with the frequent-travel culture here it becomes very easy for this behaviour exhibited by others to seep into your own attitude. It’s only afterwards when you realise  — oh wait  — I couldn’t really afford this lifestyle.  

Oddly, I want to go. But when my pleasure principle takes over my logical thinking, a few months down the line when I’m surviving on my emergency supply of tinned food, I question why. There’s a thin line separating the genuine enjoyment of travelling and feeling obliged at a specific time of year. If so many of my peers weren’t jetting off all the time, would I even consider it? 

Perhaps the thin line is even thinner than I thought. I’m now off to finally book my flights and hope the regret doesn't seep in until after the Barcelonian sun has.  

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons