I am a 400-level student. I have spent the equivalent of almost two full years at home due to strikes. I am 24 years old, should be building a career, and I am instead explaining to potential employers why my degree has taken this long.
The anxiety of not knowing when school will resume. The momentum of academic life completely interrupted. The friends who found ways to leave — travel, relocation, private universities — and the quiet shame of staying because you couldn't.
People at home who don't fully understand why you seem stuck. "Just do something productive." As if the uncertainty isn't its own paralysis.
I've tried to use the time well. I've freelanced, I've read, I've built skills. But there is something uniquely demoralising about your formal education being a hostage to a dispute you have no power over.
I want to open this conversation because I know I am not alone in this and yet everyone seems to carry it privately, as though struggling under conditions designed to make you struggle is something to be ashamed of.
If you have navigated the psychological weight of academic disruption — what helped? And how did you deal with the re-entry when school finally resumed?