How is it that college is supposed to simultaneously be the “best years of our life” but also a means to an end for us to finally “enjoy life?” How can we savor something that we’re pressured to finish from the very second we start?
From the day we read our acceptance letter, to the day we hit submit on our last final and walk across the stage, there is a continuously mounting pressure to get it over with. Most college students are in their early 20s, so why are we all under the crazy impression that we have to get this done or we will somehow run out of time?
We, as a society, are terrified of aging. These years are considered our prime, so why waste them on school? Why not get it out of the way to get started with life? These blurbs of flawed mental gymnastics are dangerously regarded as high truths and are part of the mounting societal pressure to follow certain timelines.
I mean, it’s an absolutely ludicrous idea that our 20s are inherently the best time of our life and somehow the only time we will truly enjoy. Seeing that we aren’t expected to drop dead until we reach 70 or so, how is it that this one decade, our 20s, is somehow the defining few years of our lives?
Then there’s the insane idea that college is something we have to “get over with.” College is the time to garner experience, whether it be professional experience, life experience, romantic experience, etc. It’s the time to network, land internships, discover passions, explore the dating world, and just see what life has to offer now that you have a semblance of independence and a taste of adulthood.
Why must we adhere to these societally imposed timelines to dictate how we live our lives? Since when was taking your time to finish your degree such a bad thing? Why are we demonized for working at a pace that even slightly deviates from the timeline that has been forced on us since grade school? I could do the super cliché writer thing where I blame the American Dream and call it a day, but I think it’s definitely much deeper than just that (while the American Dream is part of it). It’s almost like our 20s are romanticized as the best times of our lives as if it’s not the few years most of us spend scrambling to understand our identity as an adult.
We work tirelessly for four years during high school to get into a good college, rush through college while still somehow landing internships and earning great grades, maybe attend grad school, go into our careers, and then what? Work until you turn 70 so you can just rot away with the knowledge that you’ve been working toward goals that weren’t even yours to begin with?
I guess what I’m trying to say is, we are way too young to worry about running out of time or being left behind. College is just the beginning of our adult lives, so why not savor every moment? Don’t worry about how fast anyone else is going. Pace yourself while still being mindful of things like financial aid and course requirements. College is not a means to an end, nor is it inherently the best years of our lives. It’s whatever you make of it. So be sure to get everything you can out of your college experience without trying to live up to someone else’s seemingly impossible standards.