DISCLAIMER: Everything mentioned here is strictly ALLEGED until the courts come to a decision. While I doubt I’ll get sued since I’m not name-dropping anyone and y’all don’t know where I study, I’d rather not take any risks. Once again, everything is ALLEGED.
The Devil doesn’t wear Prada. He wears a grey suit with a deep blue tie, black shoes, circular glassed and is balding at the top of his head. He teaches constitutional law. “Look to your left, then to your right. By the end of the year, only one of you will remain.” I rolled my eyes. It’s something my cousin had already warned me about, the competition is ruthless and not everyone is cut out for it. I knew I might be one of those who stay behind, I didn’t care. I was happy with motivation thrumming through my veins in lieu of blood.
I. Was. Ready.
That is until The Devil opened his mouth and started speaking in tongues.
By the end of that class, I had a migraine and was seeing double. I don’t even remember what I asked but I know it was a stupid question, though by that point any question I’d ask would be stupid since it was my first class. The Devil stared at me, baffled before telling me I should drop out if I’m going to be asking such idiotic questions. I held back my tears until I got home, kicked my not-yet-unpacked suitcase aside threw myself on my couch-bed. I’m so fucked. I cried as I realised that the next three to five years would be the hardest I’d ever go through.
The Devil changed his face every day. One day he’d be an old man in his sixties teaching legal history and the next, a woman in her seventies teaching civil law. One thing that never changed was the way He made me feel: stupid compared to everyone else. I would come in, sit down and religiously type on my laptop, then go home, prepare flashcards and google words everyone seemed to know and still, I was behind compared to everyone else.
My mother told me not to think of it much. Those students have been educated in the French system their whole lives and they still fail, we don’t expect you to be perfect on your first try. But I do. I need to prove to myself and my parents that I’m not lazy, need to scrub the adhesive off my skin. I was lazy in high school and it worked but even I knew that wouldn’t translate in university, even less in a space as demanding as law school.
It’s hard. At first, everyone, even The Devil’s minions (TD teachers) commented on my strange accent and the way I seemed to be translating what I wanted to say while speaking, resulting in me inventing words or figures of speech in process. I remember one particular minion, or I guess, iteration of The Devil cutting me off in the middle of my cold call to berate me in a class of 40 students and telling me to speak French correctly or to not speak it at all. All because I mispronounced the word “apparently”. Yes, that’s all. That was my greatest sin.
Over time, I learned to placate The Devil, I learned to smile and nod, to never question him and accept any and all comments whether they were insulting or not. I learned to hide my accent and became a “proper” law student who bowed her head and waited for the blade to fall.
Three years later, I’m tired and I’ve grown horns.
I hate my university, I hate everyone around me, I can’t transfer out because I’m too deep in my studies, and the major I once loved with every fibre of my being is slowly ruining my mental health. I’m in L2 again, because my university decided to fail me on a technicality. I only needed 0.07 points to pass the year. That’s equivalent to a quarter of a point in one exam. One. I begged my professors to regrade my papers, to do anything. They refused, told me if they agreed to regrade my paper, they’d have to regrade everyone else’s. I appealed, they told me to go fuck myself, I watched as my chances of getting into a good Masters degree program went down the drain.
I hate my professors. I hate how racist they are, how they look down on me, my foreign education and my foreign name. I hate how the “good” ones try to compliment me by telling me how un-Turkish I seem, either by my behaviour, diction or appearance. I hate how unwilling to pass students they are, how an entire year’s average in an exam being a 5/20 is viewed as normal and not a fundamental flaw in the professor’s teaching. It’s hard for me to believe that somehow, every single psychopathic, racist professor in France has found their way into my university but once you come here it’s honestly impossible to ignore it. If someone told me that any of my professors had drop kicked a baby or pushed someone onto subway tracks during the weekend I would believe them in a heartbeat.
I wish we could fight, I wish we could protest but when we do, the retaliation is fierce and unforgiving. Several students and faculty members have already either been kicked out or fired for calling out discrimination with an ongoing administrative and criminal investigation opened about 30 professors, all high-ranking, all ALLEGEDLY (I’m not getting sued today) racist, sexist and incapable of giving a grade above 8/20. This has become such a problem that professors who have “nothing” to do with the case have forbidden us from speaking of it on school grounds. This all has lead to one student currently suing the university to going on hunger strike on may of 2026 with several hospitalisations since then. Over the course of several months, a particular professor has ALLEGEDLY threatened to beat him up, has tried to drag him off campus and has told him to stop “pulling the race card” to “get his way” after he appealed the university’s decision to not allow him to continue his PhD.
This is what happens to those who speak out. Yes, it’s the right thing to do, but I have too much on the line and too many people counting on me to put it at risk. It’s selfish, it’s wrong and it keeps repeating the cycle. I’m aware of that and I know the fact that I’m aware of it doesn’t make my inaction any better, it probably makes it worse but I need this degree before being able to do anything about it. Yes it’s cowardly, you won’t ever hear me deny it. Still, I need to graduate and pass the bar if I ever want to successfully go against this venomous shit hole that pollutes the very air I breathe. That place will not defeat me.
I hate missing lectures as doing so makes me dependant on other people’s notes and I’ve been sent fake ones before. Of course, I trust my friends not to screw me over but I’m sad to say that twice now, said trust has been shattered. The worst part is I understand fully. This is a competition. It might not be stated officially as it is in Med school but that’s exactly what it is.
This is my last chance to pass. If I don’t, I’ll be kicked out of university. I don’t want to fail and I’m willing to withhold my notes to do it. I won’t ever outwardly sabotage anyone, that goes against everything I stand for but the truth is there aren’t enough spots for everyone and I’m not going to make someone’s life easier by letting them have my notes. My university takes a thousand students in L1. That number goes down to 500 in L2 and L3 only has a 150 spots. Selfishness and sabotage are necessary if you want to have a chance at succeeding and afterwards, you need to rank in the top 10 if you want to get waitlisted from an okay Masters degree close enough to Paris to leech off the “Parisian university” prestige.
Fake lecture notes keep being sent into the major group chat. I call it out every time but I won’t lie and say there haven’t been times where I’ve wanted to keep quiet. Let them fail, a voice whispers, there’ll be more spots for you to take, you need this. It’s hard to keep your integrity in an environment that constantly wants you to abandon it with professors that keep pushing the narrative that we shouldn’t help anyone but ourselves. I’m not a better person than others for choosing not to sabotage, perhaps I’m just less motivated.
I’m scared of the person I’m tempted to become. I want to be cold and cutting, I don’t want to care about the situation of others. This is a cutthroat environment and if I don’t do it to someone, they’ll do it to me. Or so we’re told. I’m not writing this to tell you how empathetic and good of a person I am— I’m not. The only reason I’m not sabotaging is because I know my success would feel undeserved. I hate this environment yet I find myself smiling at the sharp-toothed, ram horned, arrow-tipped tail having person who looks at me from the other side of the mirror. I can see the determination in her eyes and feel that thirst for success in her throat. Nothing will take this away from her, the demon’s presence is necessary for her to achieve her goal.
I get especially annoyed when the same people ask for lecture notes or recordings in the group chat. Come to class!!! I think, but of course I know not everyone can come to every class, every day. Our classes are from 8AM until 9PM on most days, a majority of our student body works either part or full time. These students don’t have the privilege of prioritising their studies over making rent or taking care of their families. It’s unjust, it’s abhorrent and the university doesn’t do anything to help them. I wish we all had the same opportunities but we don’t. Academia is a rich, elitist environment and you either make it or you don’t. That’s the way the system is built and it rewards those who abide by it. I need to be rewarded by it. Those students will most likely end up dropping out and every time I notice less faces in the lecture hall, a part of me breathes a sigh of relief at the knowledge that some competition has been eliminated. I know I’ve given several people that same relief as well but it doesn’t help to deal with the guilt and shame that accompanies it.
I’m a scholarship student. I present my neck to the boot of Academia for stepping and I don’t utter a word as I choke. Such is life. I deserve to be here, I deserve to have a fighting chance despite being disadvantaged compared to my peers and I’m not going to feel bad about it. I cannot afford to fail because if I do, what waits for me is the first flight back to Türkiye and a life I’ve sworn to never live. I don’t feel bad if you fail and I don’t want you to feel bad for me either. I want you to see that I am one of the thousands of students who are desperate to succeed in something they love and need in order to have the independence they’ve been craving their entire life.
My hair has been falling off recently. A bald spot formed on my right temple, I’ve been trying to convince myself my baby hairs are blonde but I know the truth. I hate that I’ve let university do this to me, I hate that I can’t leave. I want to get my degree, I want to continue with my studies and I want to graduate but I can’t help feeling this sense of impending doom whenever I walk into that place. The walls close in on me, crushing each of my bones, causing them to puncture my lungs. I get tunnel vision and the word “FAILURE” in bold, bloody letters echoes in my mind every day as I walk into yet another overcrowded lecture hall.
I tell myself that my CV is great. I have an internship at an arbitration firm, it’s international, I’m different, I’m smart, I speak 5 languages and I plan on interning again in the second semester. I’m not stupid, I tell myself. After all, I was tenth in the entire major for corporate law, I was top of my class in constitutional law and American contract law. I’m good, I’m very good. Still, it’s not enough. My grades are still too low to every amount to anything— repeating the year twice is basically a death sentence though it does give me a chance to increase my grade. Still, I have absolutely no motivation. I try to snap out of it. I need to give it all I’ve got but I’ve been doing that and more for the past three, almost four years now with no great success. I feel like every grade I receive is random and I can’t help but want those around me to fail with me because I just feel completely stupid. Stupid compared to those around me, stupid given my potential, stupid compared to the person I want to be.
I’m ashamed to wish failure on others but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. I’m tired, I wish I knew what I was doing wrong, I wish my professors actually answered when I ask. I’m tired of complaining too, but that’s all I can do right now because I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to let this shit hole ruin my confidence any more than it already has, I’m not going to let it win. Me getting my diploma will be my biggest fuck you to this place. Then, I will get into a Masters degree program, any program as long as it’s not here, and I will never speak of this place again. Only then will I be free.
But first, I need to win. I need to win so badly.
© 2026 C. H. Gökdemir. All rights reserved.
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