The One-Upmanship Complex

It doesn't take very long before university students get down to the conversation of how good their respective universities are. If there happens to be a group of people coming together from various establishments then that particular conversation tends to occur sooner rather than later. The usual spiels relate to some kind of ranking system where someones university is 3 places above another out of 1000000 and for someone looking in from the outside it just wouldn't make any sense but I've come up with the reason why people do it. It's not because they want to make other people feel bad about their university, it's not even because they are going to gain anything from it; it's because they are proud of their university.

Being at a university such as Edinburgh means that I'm a pretty good position. The university as a whole gets placed as the highest Scottish university on most rankings and it's something I am proud to be able to say that I'm a part of. That is not to say that I think I'm better than anyone else though because I know that my university isn't as good as some others in particular areas. I have come across a few people that go on about Edinburgh as if it's the place that everyone really wants to be but they just couldn't get there - I like not to associate with those types of people. I have friends at just about every university in Scotland and I would never think myself to be better than any of them. I guess as an Edinburgh students (and particularly a law student) I get tarnished with an unfair cloth along with my peers. We're not like that at all (well my friends anyway) and if you every catch us saying anything it's more than likely to be self-deprecatory rather than the blowing of our own trumpets.

My message this evening to everyone who has now been back at university for a couple of weeks is that you should be proud of where you are. You should be proud of the decision that you made to go there and you should consider the merits that you made that decision on to be something of a badge of honor - wear it with pride. Don't, however, turn it into something that puts you 'above' other people, especially not your friends - it's not cool and it's not going earn you extra credits for your course!

Thanks for reading and I'll see you all on Monday!

Martin