The hidden rules of university

I have a friend who's exceptionally intelligent. She did a Masters, then a PhD in biomedical sciences, and she's now a lecturer and researcher. Looking at her now, you'd find it hard to believe her university journey started with spectacular failure.

She didn't begin in biomedical science. She began in medicine, at one of Scotland's oldest and most prestigious universities. As far as she could tell, she was the only person on the programme who didn't come from a professional family. Around her were students whose parents were doctors, lawyers, surgeons, all sorts of impressive-sounding things. Her own parents came from far humbler origins.

Before you get the wrong end of the stick, this isn't a story about students from privileged backgrounds having it better than others. It's a story about institutions and the hidden rules that need to be understood to succeed in them. While some students arrive already knowing how university works, they already know many of the the unwritten rules nobody explains, others, like my friend, don't even know those rules exist.

She always felt her classmates were light years ahead. Not because they were smarter. They were just comfortable in ways she wasn't. Asking questions. Talking to professors. Being strategic about what to study. Moving through the strange bureaucracy of university life like they'd done it before.

My friend wasn't. She came from a solid working-class background. Bright, driven, more than capable of handling the art and science of medicine. What she struggled with was never the science. It was the system.

She didn't know how to handle the endless forms, the paperwork, the unspoken expectations of a medical programme. She didn't know how to perform competence in the subtle ways that make people think this person belongs here. And yes, before you ask, competence can be performative. Not fake. Performative. Doctors do it. Lecturers do it. Professionals do it constantly. It's how you speak and carry yourself, the quiet signals that say you belong.

Nobody had explained any of this to her. Everywhere she turned, more unwritten rules. Expectations nobody voiced. Assumptions about how you should speak, behave, carry yourself. There was no handbook. No page on the university website called Welcome, here are the twenty-seven strange rules nobody is going to explain but you'll need to figure out fast.

So she felt behind. And eventually she dropped out.

A few years later she returned and switched to biomedical sciences, and she took off like a rocket. The culture of the programme was different. The social signalling was different. The expectations were still there, they just weren't tangled up in tradition and background. She thrived. A Masters, a PhD, an academic career. Years later, reflecting on the medical path she missed out on, she'd say, "I just wasn't built for it." I've always thought the opposite, that the system wasn't built for her.

But this isn't really a story about medical school. Or about elite universities. It's a story about the hidden university rules that determine success.

The hidden university curriculum is everywhere. Every campus, every course, every subject. Less obvious than in medicine, maybe. But always there.

You're expected to pick it up fast. And when nobody names the rules, especially when you're anxious, or your confidence is already a bit shaky, you start to assume the problem is you. You think everyone else understands something you don't. And sure, sometimes they do. But often they're just a little further ahead in working out the hidden curriculum.

Can you argue? Can you prioritise? Can you think critically? Can you sit with uncertainty without your brain catching fire? Can you absorb the unwritten rules of your subject?

Those are the hidden parts. The underwater bulk of the iceberg.
That's why WeGoGeek exists. Students deserve to have the rules named. Not hidden. Not dressed up in academic nonsense. Named.

I think about my friend's first year and how anxious she must have felt. She's more than fine now. But that first go at medical school didn't have to end the way it did. She had the brains. She had the work ethic. What she didn't have was anyone to tell her how the place actually worked. And the people who run those old established courses rarely think to explain how to successfully navigate the hidden curriculum. To them, it’s too obvious to make explicit, and the sink or swim philosophy is just part of the programme.

If someone had sat her down in first year and walked her through how feedback works, how to talk to a professor, what a seminar is actually for, how to performatively be a successful medical student, I think she'd have stayed. Thankfully she eventually landed on her feet. What concerns me now are all the students who gave up and didn't come back, convinced university wasn't for them. That's why I started WeGoGeek

If you feel behind, anxious, out of place, lost in a strange landscape of seminars, lectures and office hours, here's my message. Feeling that way is completely normal. And there's a very good chance the problem isn't you. You just need to figure out how it all works.