A Student from the Provinces: Between Gratitude and Constant Proving

By Petra Vučković

Before we arrive in the big city, we dream of it. We dream of leaving as a form of rescue. We dream of it as a promise. As a way out of narrow circles and endless repetition. As a place where life becomes broader than what was offered to us. In the provinces, the big city is imagined as the answer to all the limitations imposed by a small environment and to the need to be more than what we are allowed to be.

We dream of culture there isn’t enough of. Of people who come from different places and carry the world within them. We dream of conversations that will change our view of the world and lift us beyond our own boundaries. And we can hardly wait to leave. And then, when the departure finally happens, we realize that dreams don’t come with instructions.

The first days in the big city are filled with excessive joy. We walk faster than necessary. We look at more than our eyes can take in. Everything seems possible. We feel as if we are finally where we are meant to be. As if we have, at last, stepped into our own lives.
But very soon, beneath that initial joy, a silence appears.

A student from the provinces in a big city is often shy. Not because they have nothing to say, but because they have learned not to impose themselves. Not to take up too much space, and to be grateful just for being there. In smaller communities, we learn to adapt, not to ask.

In the big city, however, adapting is not enough. If you don’t speak up, you remain unnoticed. If you don’t insist, you are easily passed over.

And it is precisely there that constant proving begins. Quiet, persistent, and everyday. Proving that you know. That you can. That you deserve it. You prove yourself at university, in conversations. You prove yourself even when no one is directly testing you, because you carry within you the awareness that you don’t have the luxury of being average.

That is when the split begins. Between the place we come from and the place we are trying to belong to. Our identities fracture—one part of us remains tied to home, to safety, to the familiar, while the other is being built here, in a city that still doesn’t recognize us.

At home, you are no longer the same. In the big city, you are still not quite yourself. We are not entirely there, but we are not fully here either. A student from the provinces often lives between two worlds: at home, we become “the ones who left,” and in the city, we are “the ones who arrived.” Between these two worlds, we often stand alone, trying to reconcile who we are with who we are becoming.

Not enough is said about that exhaustion.

About the kind that doesn’t show up in photographs and doesn’t fit into the sentences sent back home.

About the tears that aren’t shared, because explaining them would require admitting that not everything turned out the way you imagined.

About those moments of silence when you ask yourself whether you made a mistake by leaving, while at the same time knowing that going back would be another kind of defeat.
About that feeling of always being in between: too far away to return, and still not close enough to truly settle.

Over time, however, it does get easier.

The city slowly stops being an enemy. Streets gain meaning, faces become names, and the sense of not belonging begins to fade. You start to notice all the charms of life in a big city.You find new opportunities, meet new people, discover your small places that make everyday life brighter. You begin to understand that you don’t have to give up yourself in order to belong.

That you can carry more than one place within you. That you are made of different beginnings, of several silences that, over time, learn to live together. But it is important to say this as well: that path is not gentle. And not everyone walks it in the same way.

A student from the provinces does not come to the big city empty-handed. They arrive with a strong work ethic, with patience, with dreams that have been gathering for a long time. They arrive with gratitude—but also with the right to claim their place. Without apologizing, and without diminishing themselves.

The big city may not immediately notice those who arrive quietly. But it is precisely those people who know what it means to start from zero. What it means to stay, even when it would be easiest to go back.

And so, between gratitude and constant proving, a student from the provinces learns the most important lesson: belonging is not something that is granted to you. It is something you build. Step by step. Word by word.

Until the city, slowly, begins to feel like home.

Petra Vučković (2004) from Leposavic is a third-year student at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, majoring in General Literature. She graduated from “Nikola Tesla” Grammar School as Student of the Generation. She is a member of the editorial team of the magazine Student. Alongside her studies, she is actively engaged in writing and public expression, and works as a journalist and the author of the program Povodi on the local television station “Mir,” where she covers topics in culture and society.