Hurlstone In Progress: The Warwick Condition – Loud men and academic snobbery

I have always been a bit of a try-hard. At school, I put my hand up to answer questions like the classroom was my own personal quiz. I hoped to carry this passionate engagement into university work, but I was too busy being weird to properly lean into the try-hard label last year. Still, I’ve always been the type to obsess about grades.

I was also chronically under-predicted at school. Some teachers seemed to assume I’d plateau somewhere mediocre, while boys with scruffy books who didn’t try were begging for teachers to bump their grades up. I, on the other hand, didn’t dare ask for a higher prediction. I just smiled and asked what I could do to prove myself like some kind of sad, academic Oliver Twist.

So when my A-level results came in above what anyone had predicted for me, I was over the moon. I’d worked to the point of mania, so it was gratifying to see all the hours pay off.

Still, I kept pretty quiet about it. I knew not everyone would be thrilled, and, frankly, bragging about A-levels once you get to university feels a bit like celebrating your Year Six SATs. So, imagine my surprise when, on my first hour at university, a guy I’d just met asked me, point-blank, what my A-levels were. I told him. He looked almost disgusted. He later told me he didn’t expect me to have such good grades. I wondered what exactly, within my short time of existing in his presence, screamed: nah, she must be thick. I now assume it’s a general woman thing rather than something personal towards me.

Warwick, for all its charm, can attract a certain breed of academic snobbery (mostly from men)

Since then, I’ve developed an annoying compulsion to prove myself – armed with receipts. I know it seems sly and really irritating, but when you’ve been underestimated your whole life, you can get a bit defensive.

And I know it’s not just me. One of my cleverest friends was in tears in week one after a guy consistently made her feel stupid by talking over her. Later that term, when the same guy asked her how she was getting on with her essay, she explained, only for him to inform her she had got completely the wrong idea. She hadn’t. In fact, she got an 82 on this essay, written mostly in one evening. He, meanwhile, struggles with full stops.

That’s the problem with loud, confident men. It’s not always malice – sometimes it’s just volume – but either way, it can leave you feeling a bit flattened, even when your knowledge supersedes theirs.

Warwick, for all its charm, can attract a certain breed of academic snobbery (mostly from men). It’s not just the Oxbridge rejects. It’s also the finance bros, the self-appointed geniuses, the ones who think confidence equals intellect. A kind of enraging performative ambition, quiet resentment, and loud self-promotion.

I can’t help but jump at any opportunity to prove to people I’m actually not stupid – even if no one asks

It makes sense. Warwick wasn’t everyone’s first choice, which creates the manic need to prove that you could be somewhere better, creating sections of campus full of people, desperate to ‘out-clever’ each other. The atmosphere isn’t always so nice. You can start measuring your own worth not by what you enjoy or create, but by how convincingly you can perform competence.

So yes, I’ve become somewhat unbearable in conversations about grades. I can’t help but jump at any opportunity to prove to people I’m actually not stupid – even if no one asks or is assuming I am. But when women spend their entire lives being underestimated, sometimes the urge to show the receipt of a good grade is irresistible. Even when they don’t give you any praise for it, assume they could have done that too, and make the whole activity feel essentially futile.

I’d love to get to the point where I don’t care if people think I’m clever or not. Those who matter already know I’m intelligent. But until men stop being rewarded for volume over value, I’ll be there, being annoying, flexing the fact that I have proof I’m not an idiot.