We all know social media glamorizes the world, but what I never realized was how seriously it glamorized college. Don’t get me wrong, I love the college I go to and my life here. But that doesn’t always mean that my life is perfect in any way. It’s easy to get lost in an endless spiral on Instagram only seeing everyone’s ‘perfect’ side of their life. I constantly find myself thinking, ‘why doesn’t my college experience look like this?’ or ‘wow they look much happier than me’. It’s a constant comparison of myself to others, when our lives are all so different from each other.
Over this past year I especially learned that no one shows their real life on social media. No one shows them studying for their biology test till 2 am. They don’t show their homesickness, their loneliness, or their feelings of academic doubt. People don’t show their struggles on social media because they don’t want to show those parts of themselves. You can never really know if someone is truly happy at all through their social media. It is only a highlight real of their life.
Comparing yourself to this ideal is unrealistic. It is not possible to live a life that is so idolized. Certain aspects of college are so amazing and are truthful on social media. But certain parts are difficult and this is never seen online. Seeing college only as flawless on social media, can make me feel bad about my own college experience. It causes me to overthink about my own life and focus more on my struggles than my happy moments. What I have realized is, every college student has different struggles that no one else sees. Everyone lives a different college experience.
THERE IS NO ‘RIGHT’ COLLEGE EXPERIENCE
For some time, I felt scared to do college ‘wrong’. What does this even mean? There are a million different ways to have a college experience. Even people that go to my same college will have a different experience than me through their major, friends, and clubs they join. Every single person lives college life a bit differently and that is ok. There is no right or wrong path to get a college degree. And there is no measurable way to show how someone’s else’s college experience is better than your own. No matter what social media tries to convince you.
Freshman year is the time to figure out what you want your own personal college experience to be like. It takes time to know who you want to surround yourself with and what you want to focus on. Freshman year is filled with so many fun times, but it is equally filled with confusing times. It takes a lot to adjust to a whole new lifestyle, a new place, and being away from home. No one shows this side of it on social media. They only show their favorite parts and nothing more. It’s important to go into college with an open mind and know that college is so exciting but it comes with its hard times as well.