The St Andrews Experience

800 years of getting away with it

If one thing has become clear, every time a publication has rather stupidly let me put pen to paper, it is that I can never resist complaining. Five years here has made me the image of the wisened old man, shaking his fist at the youths who ride by with their all-too-wide-eyed innocence and beaming enthusiasm. If you’ll let me, I’d like to be seduced once more by such a sin: St Andrews will never change. No matter how much we grunt, grimace or grin — how many times we post on Confessdrews or write in The Saint — what makes St Andrews turn is as eternal as gravitational force. Let’s delve into what is, at least, my own conclusions that I finally feel qualified to draw. 

It’s a wonder how much people like to hate each other in this town. When social currency hinges on what club you were accepted into and later fashionably reject, or which puffer jacket you don while walking down the street, competition and comparison are simply inevitable. Intra-A Cappella drama meant that my friendships with other groups were read as disloyalty, and I was asked to leave The Accidentals over email — something that led me to attempt what I’d rather not give a name to. I replied, explaining my situation, and received nothing back — not a message, not a call. One member later told me they had unfollowed me because the debate about removing me had been “too stressful” (even though I clearly wasn’t part of it). Similarly, HerCampus hosted a writers' meeting promptly after the release of my previous article, "HerCampus has a Problem,” in which I heard them (over a discreet eavesdropping manoeuvre) call me pro-MAGA and told everyone that my essentially calling it the blonde, Cartier-wearing convention was a “logical fallacy.”

Internalised misogyny is one thing, but this town is rife with those who are proud of it. A certain secret society that not-so-secretly takes applications only really does so because Dame Mapstone complained that having no female members reflected badly on the University. However, the inclusion of female bejants does not stop them from recording all of their sexual exploits in a book that supposedly still sits in One Under Bar. At a university that continues to excuse, as the front page of this very newspaper often details, accused rapists, it is no wonder the only people who truly feel comfortable here are those who can afford to, or those who just don’t get caught. Those who were never officially reported still shook my hand at Welly Ball as if it never happened.

Finally, CATWALK manifests this prejudice professionally. Almost all fashion shows can leave an interesting aftertaste. Model casts that consist of a few POCs who predominantly report feeling tokenistic are supported by an almost wholly white committee. To then choose the theme “double consciousness” with no reference or credit given to W. E. B. Du Bois, and later delete the apology ACS deserved? Du Bois would be turning in his grave. To have “the only 100% non-profit fashion show” blasted on speakers and all over their Instagram profile, while admitting — when questioned — that they, a) have no evidence of this and b) are “unsure [they] are the only fashion show that donates 100% of the proceeds” is certainly a choice. It’s a decidedly bad idea to diminish and discredit the work of other “entirely volunteer-run” shows (which CATWALK claimed as their unique factor) in the name of selling roughly five more tickets. We’re not fighting over the last war rations just yet.

It seems life is no different from 1413. 

However, fear not! A few things are starting to shift. Aikman’s, once heralded as the home of students who fancied themselves Marxists, is now heard ringing with n-words thrown at bar staff and “autism” accusations during Thatcher Thursday nights hosted by StAUCA — more infamously known as Tory Society (though, don’t ask me what I’d call them three drinks deep). A current bartender publishes articles on the website ConservativeHome, ranting that international students “erode British culture” whilst accusing them of “dodging taxes” by taking low-wage gig economy jobs. At the same time, Reform Society rents out the Rule to hurl the n-word at those who engage in political debate with them. Is St Andrews really apolitical? Or is it just that our fights, which are considered politically activist, are systematically silenced?

Perhaps, after all this, I am wrong. It is not St Andrews that never changes — it’s the ‘St Andrews experience’ that won’t. The money a specific type of student brings — whether that be the upper-middle-class private-schooled Southerner or the New Yorker who somehow gets more of the blame — is irresistible. To events that want to grow bigger for more appeal in a LinkedIn post; to the University, which wants to have more money to host Senate hearings over grade conversions or a pro-Palestinian Rector; and to the students who want free Janetta’s at grad ball but don’t care about rent caps on town flats. We are all, in some way or another, just following the money.

And that is precisely how it survives. St Andrews doesn’t need to change, because the finances prove it doesn’t need to. The good news I can offer is that after 800 years, St Andrews still offers sixteen coffee shops, ten pubs, a pretty quad, and, just occasionally, some world-class teaching. As long as the walls still stand and don’t tumble off the Scores, I guess this will always be home. Stockholm syndrome or not, I’ll miss it.

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons