Should You Go To University?
I applied to university because it was the next logical step. Like many, I spent years trying to find my “purpose”.
I had through 15 jobs in the first 4 years of my working life. I was desperate to find a career for myself; from sports turf management to selling windows. I tried everything that I was remotely interested in.
In 2022, after this whirlwind of career indecision, I sought a career in marketing. And I found one. It was an apprenticeship in B2B marketing, providing me with a base to settle and build my life around. However, one thought that remained constant in the back of my head: working in sports. I have always loved sports and envisioned myself being directly involved with it.
Despite the desire for a career in sport, I enjoyed marketing. My job allowed me the freedom to learn, experiment, and explore all the jobs under the ‘Digital Marketing’ umbrella (copywriting, social media management, email marketing, etc.). This feeling of actually enjoying my job was new and unfamiliar up to that point.
Then my mind drifted towards fear.
The pull of working sports grew stronger, and I feared that I was sentencing myself to life at a desk. So, I started looking at university courses to study sports science.
By this time, I had been writing fitness and sports blogs for a few years, but I hadn’t got anywhere with it. I wanted to explore my dream of working in sports.
Years of indecision and inaction led me to what I thought was the next step in my life: returning to formal education to get a degree.
I found a good course which was close to home and offered an opportunity to obtain two degrees in 4 years (and to study in Australia for a year). Perfect, right?
Despite the energy that drew me to apply for the course, I spent most of my time in the lead-up to September 2024 contemplating whether or not I wanted to go to university. It would be a huge change from the life I had grown comfortable in and would require a lot of sacrifice. Sacrifice that I was not certain was necessary for my dream life.
I flip-flopped between two extremes.
At 9am I was committed to university. I wanted to get a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and PhD in my pursuit of this dream life in sports. At 9:05am, I didn’t want to go to university and would continue on the marketing career path I had already started building.
It was sort of a decision between instant and delayed gratification.
I’m sure you can understand why this decision plagued my brain for 18 months. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s a simple decision, and I’ve gone around this loop of jumping back and forth between decisions that I’ve sent myself crazy.
The Leap
Spoiler alert: I leapt and started university.
Optimism and hope that this was the correct decision stayed with me for about a month before severe doubt settled in. The drawn-out, staggered, and basic content of the course planted the seeds in my head that returned me to the state of indecision about whether university was right for me, all while I was paying £9,000+ to have a student ID card. If I stayed the course, I’d pay £50,000+ for a student ID card AND a piece of paper that communicates to employers that I know what I’m doing.
The debt, the time, the feeling of being trapped, and the knowledge that I had already started a career bugged me every day.
I continued working in marketing part-time while studying. The cycles of crippling thoughts were paused by moments like seeing my final grade from an assignment and competing in the BUKC (British Universities Karting Championship).
These reignited my drive and reminded me why I applied for university in the first place, but I was never able to settle on a decision for more than a week.
As the months passed, I started to realise that I spent most of my time in my head. Overthinking every possible outcome for staying and leaving university. The moments when I wasn’t in my head—when I was actively learning, getting involved in things, and pretending to function like a normal human being—were when I felt most at peace with my decision to stay at university.
But this was my way of distracting myself from the deep knowledge that I was wasting my time and money at university, at least for now.
I kept this all to myself, though. From the outside, you would’ve seen someone who had it all figured out.
I knew the risks and sacrifices of reentering formal education at 24, and I was balancing it well. I had continued in marketing as a backup plan, but I was smashing university. I had interviews for internships in professional sports and even got a promotion in my marketing job.
The plan looked solid from the outside, but I was probably at the lowest point of my life during this time.
The Reality
I’m the type of person who goes all-in on everything I do.
If I got the idea that I wanted to work in professional sports, I was always going to do everything I possibly could to make that a reality.
Building my personal brand online through producing content hyper-focused on the area I wanted to work in, going to university to get a degree in the area, and anything else I could think of to put me ahead in my urgent race with myself to success.
All I want is to be happy with my life, but I never allow myself to be.
It’s always been in search of the “next” thing that will achieve the life I want.
The Decision
That brings us to today. I’m writing this after completing my first year of studying a BSc Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences at the University of Portsmouth.
I’ve decided to leave.
The truth is, I’m not doing any good by spending most of my time in my head thinking about every possible situation for every possible path I may or may not choose.
I want peace from my mind.
I believe that I will do that by pivoting away from university, at least for now. I’m not closing the door on this path forever. It’s always going to be an option if I am at least 80% certain it is what I want to do in the future. But, for now, for me, it isn’t.
There are many reasons for this. Like anything, there are pros and cons. The cons outweigh the pros in this instance. Plus, through this process, I’ve learnt that I will never be 100% certain about almost any decision, especially big decisions that change the trajectory of my life. There will always be something from the other option that is more appealing than the one I choose, but that’s okay. That’s life.
We never know what would’ve happened if we chose the other option, so we should make the most of the path we are already on. We are in control of that. Not in control of how our stories go, but in control of how we react and interpret them.
If you’re going through something similar, I hope this helps:
Staying at university means…
~£50,000 debt for a degree that isn’t necessary/ required for the life I want to live.
3 more years feeling like I’m forcing myself through something I already know isn’t right for me.
I feel limited by the constraints of university study.
Leaving university means…
I can continue building my dream life.
I have the freedom to earn, learn, and grow on my schedule
The After
So, what now?
I’m grateful to have found that marketing apprenticeship in 2022. It has been everything I look for, and the perfect place to start in a career that is as diverse and deep as marketing.
This is where I’m at now:
I’m returning to my full-time career in marketing. This is the first newsletter of my new venture, Hanscopy.
As I mentioned earlier, my current job has given me the freedom to explore all that marketing has to offer. I’ve found what I’m best at and enjoy the most: Email and copywriting.
So welcome to The Hanscopy Journal. It’s a play on my last name (Hanscombe) and…well, I’d hope it’s obvious…copywriting.
Alongside this newsletter, I offer freelance service packages at both recurring monthly support and one-off blueprints. I’m applying the lessons I’ve learnt from my apprenticeship and experience in B2B marketing to help businesses turn leads into clients.
But let me end with this…
If you’re struggling with a big life decision, don’t wait for 100% certainty. Wait for enough clarity to move.
The rest comes from action.
