Picture this: you’re sitting at your kitchen table having a borderline awkward conversation with an extended family member about how much “fun” they had in college.
You are sitting there, nodding your head, pretending to take in every word of their crazy story – which probably involves beer pong – as you discreetly play with your food and try to make as little eye contact as possible. Though you don’t really care what this person has to say, for some reason, a specific phrase catches your attention and has now been imprinted in your mind for life: “college was the best four years of my life.”
Now, I want you to seriously think about how many times someone has told you this exact phrase. Probably a lot, right? Unfortunately, I am now a sophomore in college and this is still something that haunts my brain from time to time. This simple phrase, which has absolutely nothing to do with me, has been one of my main sources of insecurity throughout my college experience.
No matter how hard I try, questions always seem to weasel their way into my mind:
Are you having enough fun? Do you have enough friends? Are you wasting your youth? Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of fun, not to mention I have great friends. So why do I feel like my college experience is inadequate when I compare it to those wild and crazy stories of my family’s past?
Fortunately for you, I have found a slight solution to these self-deprecating thoughts that creep into my mind from time to time: find out what you like to do and what interests you, and spend your free time doing just that (instead of trying to live up to societal pressures and crazy beer pong stories from your uncle). I have found that a balance of college fun and partaking in my artistic hobbies make me feel extremely rewarded and much more relaxed.
My freshman year of college, I found it very difficult to make time for my hobbies while also balancing my busy school load and trying my absolute hardest to make friends and have a normal college experience in the midst of a pandemic. When I would finally get a rare moment of rest and contemplation, I could tell there was still something missing. I was getting my work done and I had a social life…so what gives?
Then it hit me: in the midst of trying to fit the perfect mold of a fun college student, I had forgotten to cultivate my hobbies within my new life at Saint Louis University.
I had forgotten that I love to read, listen to music, run and appreciate art. I had forgotten the importance of buying a good friend coffee and exchanging favorite songs and memories. Though these simple things may seem insignificant, trust me, they are most likely what make you…you. More often than not, these special, fulfilling moments are overlooked because they do not get a strong social reaction.
After I recognized what I was missing in my life, I started to prioritize the meaningful moments that are important to me instead of the moments I think I should enjoy because I’m a college student. I love to read, so my friends and I started a book club. I love to appreciate art, so I started going back to concerts and live theatre. I have started to prioritize intentional time spent with the ones I love instead of comparing my college experience to that of other people’s.
Last week, I had one of my favorite nights of college so far. A group of friends and I got dressed up, went to a nice Italian dinner and trekked through the snow in order to see a musical. That night, as I looked around the dinner table, I saw the smiling, content faces of some of my closest friends—laughing and sharing stories over too many baskets of bread and delicious plates of pasta—and I felt so incredibly grateful to be where I was. Not once did I think about what someone else was doing and if I could be having a more fun or “collegiate” time somewhere else.
The simple truth is: everyone’s college experience looks different. Some people may like living up to their uncle’s infamous beer pong stories—and that’s okay. Other people may like singing show tunes with their friends and having good conversations over a ridiculous amount of carbohydrates—and that’s okay. By finding what you love and implementing these aspects into your daily life, then maybe, just maybe, college will be some of the most memorable – not best – years of your life.