People always tell us college is the best time of our lives. But a lot of the time, it really doesn’t feel that way. College has its perks but it is also a time of unavoidable stress. We’re looking to find ourselves, to balance practicality and hedonism and to simply survive.
On one hand, we are finally independent. We get to decide when we go to bed at night, whether we attend class every day or once a month. There is hardly anyone looking over our shoulder — save that one overzealous resident advisor. We have control over every aspect of our years in college, but the independence comes at a price.
There were never so many worries before college, never so many neurotic tendencies. Suddenly we must worry not only about school and grades but finances, friends, health — physical and mental — roommates, residences. The list goes on and on. College may be a transition period but it sure seems to stress us out anyway.
The main problem is that we are wholly dependent before we go to college. True, most of us get cars and have the ability to go where we please, but we don’t really go anywhere. We stay in our comfort zone and rarely if ever venture out of it until college.
Thus college is stressful, unless students take advantage of the new responsibilities and better their lives, therefore lessening their stresses.
It is inevitable to feel stress about finances. Many students, like myself, have the luxury of their parents taking care of their undergraduate educational expenses. Some students even have their parents agreeing to take care of graduate or professional school expenses. However, even if the financial burden is not on the individual, they can still feel stress. Stress and guilt often go hand in hand and it is definitely valid to feel stress vicariously, or even just stress at the burden placed on people we care about.
However, there are ways to help lessen this financial burden and its associated guilt. First of all, whether one is paying for college or letting their parents finance their education, everyone should get a job. And with this job should come a savings account and budgeting of expenses. A job is nothing without proper organization.
College is undoubtedly competitive, with well-known weed-out classes and the constant competition of GPA, class rank and test scores. A good rule to live by is that one can only control themselves. Instead of stressing out about other people, just focus on yourself. You can control your own performance but you have no control over others’, so there is no need to worry.
The last source of stress is simply independence and the worries that come with it, besides financial and educational concerns. Independence involves planning the minute details of your life which are good indicators of your performance and well-being. This means what you eat every day, how much you sleep, how you manage your time and how many risky behaviors you engage in.
The simple rule is to do what you can while still feeling good. This means if you get four hours of sleep a night, exercise once a week, and eat and drink a little more than you should but still feel as though you’re functioning at your optimal level, by all means continue what you are doing. It is quite possible that your body will not be able to keep up with your less-than-healthy routine later in life, but for now, it appears to be working. If it is not working, change it. Experiment with new sleep schedules, diets, exercise routines and consuming less alcohol. Figure out what your personal balance is.
College is undoubtedly one of the best times of your life but also one of the most stressful. But there are ways to ease into the transitional period and better prepare oneself for the real world. By taking advantage of the freedom and independence to create a more carefree atmosphere, college really can become the very best period of life.