The Long Vac: The Cycle of Feeling Guilty

Lying in bed. Scrolling on Instagram. Suddenly it’s the evening and the whole day has crawled past. Nothing productive has been accomplished. Now I feel guilty for wasting the day away, especially when I check BeReal and see what everyone else has been up to. It’s too late to start anything now, I think. I’ll just go to sleep…

We have all been here. Summers spent in sunny Europe are over, emails from tutors are flooding in, and Michaelmas term is creeping closer by the day. Three months is a long time away from university, especially when September comes around and friends at other universities have already gone back. With my friends already beginning their courses for the year, the pressure to start working intensifies. And yet the motivation to get do so is nowhere in sight. Instead, the crushing pressure of what I think I should be doing looms over me while I spend my days in bed rewatching Game of Thrones.

The effect of Oxford’s work culture

Feeling ‘guilty’ and ‘unproductive’ in the vac is a common feeling, especially in the summer when we’re away from Oxford for almost three months. This has been my first long vac and I hadn’t realised how much of a mental challenge it would be to switch off. While we’re only in Oxford for half the year, the work doesn’t stop when the term ends. In the final week of Michaelmas last year, my tutor told me that “it’s called a ‘vac’ because you are only vacating Oxford, the work does not stop”. Apparently, I had been naïve to think ‘vac’ could mean ‘vacation’.

In theory, having eight-week terms gives us half the year off, but the reality is far from this. The Christmas Vac is consumed by revision for Hilary collections; the Easter vac is haunted with  the presence of prelims or finals to come. Whilst the Long Vac supposedly offers a chance to rest and relax in preparation for the following year, the pressure of academics, at least for some, does not subside. In my experience, Oxford pushes for a non-stop work culture in order to achieve the impressive grades and maintain the world class reputation that it has rightly earned. Yet we neglect to talk about how this culture is fuelled by a deep guilt that not working will set you back in your degree and result in failure.

The short nature of Oxford’s terms fuels this anxiety. An eight-week term combined with a heavy workload and the multitude of social events on offer makes time fly by fast. By the end of term, I’m exhausted and all I want to do is go to sleep for days on end. Once I feel like I’m almost fully recovered, the vac is on the verge of ending and I’m panicking about the collections I forgot to revise for. Time ends up feeling totally out of your control.

Prioritising YOU!

It’s easy to think ‘if that person has started work again, then I should too’ or ‘I’ve done nothing productive at all this week, I’m going to be so behind when I go back’. But what we have to remember is that Oxford University is hard. Our two essays a week or continuous nine-to-fives in the lab for two months straight is tiring, let alone when exams start to creep around the corner. During the vac it is just as important to take care of yourself as it is to prepare for the upcoming term, especially in the Long Vac when there is plenty of time to prioritise yourself. While it’s undoubtedly good to get a head start on  your next module, whether that be tackling the reading list or doing the first problem sheet, taking time to relax is arguably the most important purpose of the Vac.

Likewise, it’s easy to feel guilty about doing nothing when going from such a demanding environment to a much slower one. We are taught at Oxford that all our time is valuable. When we’re at university, if we’re not slaving away in the library, we’re told we should be actively involved in a society, or networking, or socialising in the college bar so we don’t miss out. When we’re at home, life is not like that; you shouldn’t feel compelled to be doing something all the time. The vac is a time to recharge and take a step back from the world of academics, as much as it is to prepare for the next term. Just because you haven’t started work yet, or aren’t studying everyday like one of your friends, this does not mean you are doing the wrong thing. The vac is about taking care of yourself, so that you are in the best mindset for when you return. And if that means some days you’re going to do nothing but watch mind-numbing reality TV in bed, then that is completely okay.