My College Rulebook
Word of the Week: Endurance
I want to begin by recognizing that I understand everyone’s college experience is entirely specific to themselves, and many of you might not agree with what I have to say. I am just a girl, after all. But for those of you who sobbed the first night in your dorm room, prayed that you might find just one person to hold onto for the semester, and spent the rest slowly putting the puzzle together, this is the place for you (and me!). Welcome!
We can all rot together now.
I will always be honest that my first semester of college was sent to rock and roll me until, weather permitting, I’d drown with nothing but my parents phone numbers and the remaining bits of my sanity. Because within those short four months, my roommate dropped out, I totaled my car, lost connections with all of my closest friends and struggled finding new ones, developed a frightening case of anxiety and onset depression, and got broken up with by my high school boyfriend. Kindly speaking, my first semester was a big letdown. From my own perspective (which I can admit is privileged) my world was in shambles. So much so, that my entire room was completely packed by the first night of my second semester, and my parents were suddenly making the five-hour drive to bring me home. I spent three weeks in Ohio beginning therapy and testing out different antidepressants, letting everything out I had bottled up, and picking up the suppressed pieces of myself that were blinded by the light of day. I sat down in my mom’s office and had a very delicate conversation with her about returning to college, and I moved forward. As my grandma had told me to do, I reorganized that closet of my life when it had all fallen out on top of me.
Now, I am a rising senior, living with my two best friends, and am no longer afraid to jump into all of the memories and exciting adventures waiting for me. Best of all, I came back to Nashville, and fought like hell to stay.
Here are the five most important things I have learned along the way.
1. Find Your Balance.
Many are often surprised by the time they must manage when starting college. Without eight-hour class days or forty-hour work weeks, there is free time handed to us like we’ve never encountered before. So I’ll tell you this: DON’T WASTE IT! (you’ll regret it for the rest of your life and one day your kids will know it too). So, you must focus on finding a good balance of this time.
For the hours you are awake, and for your week in general, I suggest splitting your time into four sections: ¼ academics, ¼ resting and repairing, ¼ for a goal you want to achieve or something that will advance you, and ¼ exploring a new activity or social event. Don’t be afraid to take a nap after class if you need it, but don’t resist the voice in your head that tells you to keep up with your schoolwork. Get a job and make new friends. Or, if you’re lucky, stay unemployed and…make new friends! Strive to find a new place to visit around your city: hidden jazz clubs, ethnic restaurants, a home church, hiking trails, karaoke bars, aesthetic coffee shops, vintage stores, the city shelter, a local brewery, a live concert, amusement, and walking parks, for example.
There is so much to explore! But don’t be afraid to say no when you need to and more importantly, when you probably should.
Find that peaceful, structured middle ground. Find your balance!
2. Prioritize Friendships
As someone who has chosen to stay single for the majority of my college career, I can go on and on about the rich friendships I have acquired from the lack of a romantic relationship (yeah, yeah peace and love forever, whatever!). The way I view it: I have the rest of my life to live in that world, but I will only be in my twenties once, and I will not lose it to some mushy-gushy, all-too-speedy, I’ll-probably-enjoy-it-more-in-my-thirties, type of love. I don’t even know all of ME yet! I couldn’t possibly handle knowing all of someone else, who has barely met themselves, too.
So YES, some find it early on, and maybe I’m just hideously jealous that wasn’t my story, but for those of you who are frantically searching and fretting over what they don’t have, you will most likely end up hurt and let down in the chase. Organic connections are hard to find in this generation, especially for the quiet ones, so let’s leave it to the natural forces of this world and think of all the lovely things around us, or whatever you boys do. Trust that there is no other ultimate universe where you are excelling or failing differently and lean into the new (and old) people in your life. This is one of the only universal experiences where such a large pool of variety exists around you: people from all over the world! Learn, listen, and interact with them. You will keep these bonds for the rest of your life.
One of my favorite ways to dive into this lesson is knowing my friend’s enneagrams, which is based off psychology, and allows you to understand someone’s deepest fears and greatest motivations. This gives you the ability to effectively communicate with someone, which is especially important to a healthy friendship. I have found that because of this, my friends and I are able to settle disagreements faster, place our boundaries more efficiently, and feel super comfortable around each other (this is a great tool to use for new roommates too!). There is a sort of satisfaction that comes from feeling truly connected to the humans around you.
With this being said, love comes in many forms. Learn to fall in love with your friendships.
3. You Are More Capable Than You Think
New environments can often be scary, but in most cases, I have found myself leaving a scene unscathed and wondering why I doubted myself in the first place. As someone who considers themselves a chronic over-thinker, so many aspects of my life are controlled by the loudness of these thoughts, shutting out everything else. The kind that sees a full closet and can never decide on an outfit in the morning. The kind that after applying sunscreen a little too long will convince myself it looks like I’m spreading mayonnaise all over my body. The kind that wonders if the earth will just boil over and scorch us all or if one day I will wake up and realize that I am the worst person that I know. The kind that constantly questions which attributes I have taken from my parents and which ones are entirely my own. The kind that can’t choose between ice cream flavors out of fear of betraying my tastebuds. All of this comes from mostly the fear of, but also sometimes the curiosity for, the unknown, all without the bravery to face it. And furthermore, not being able to trust my decisions because I’m not sure if I have made the right one. Fear has a way of destroying our confidence, and it has left me still in my tracks, afraid to enter a room or speak my mind, more times than I would like to admit.
Like I mentioned before, there is always a time to say no for the sake of your boundaries, but there are specific instances in which you must give yourself a reason to say yes. And it might feel horrifying at first, but you are so utterly capable, fully equipped and much more prepared than you think. Grasp that mindset through any experience, and you have all the qualifications to suceed.
You got it, kid. Go get ‘em.
4. Save Physical Memories
Along with being an overthinker, mentally unstable at times, and a bit of a dreamer, I have also always been obsessed with the past. I enjoy the reminders I can find within these fond moments. I find myself reminiscing on old pictures and relics too often, but I believe they are one of the best ways to capture a memory that one day might be very important, as any adult will inform you about “their college years”! You only get it once, and I think it should be remembered and memorialized through physical objects from the event.
For instance, my roommate picked up a rock on a walk she was taking amidst a Christmas party we hosted at our home, simply to catch a breath and clear her thoughts. When she came home, she gifted the rock to me, and the next morning we found it displayed as our countertop center piece. Since, we’ve decided to keep it there, and it reminds us to take a friend when we leave the house in the darker hours, and all about the spiked eggnog that made our house cheerfully full that night.
We continued this tradition when we decided in the last month to leave a blank sketchbook in our kitchen for anyone to write in. Slowly, journal entries were added about specific nights, drawings appeared of pent-up feelings or scene descriptions, printed pictures of memorable gatherings, a reflection of current, radical events, a receipt from a bomb dinner or a plastic strawberry we found on the side of the road, a simple encouragement for the day, and one day, our rock (that I will superglue to the front if I have to).
The possibilities are endless, and I look forward to twenty years down the road when I get to revisit that aged, all-too-short, definitely sacred, pocket of joy. I look forward to sharing those experiences with my children and showing them just how much vibrance and bliss is built into them. This is merely a piece of advice, but one I believe shouldn’t be disregarded.
What do you have to lose?
5. Practice Gratitude Daily
More often than not, most associate gratitude with religion. And while I personally thank God for all of the wonderful blessings in my life, gratitude can act as one of the best psychological shifters for poor mental health, and can entirely reshape the overall outlooks we have on our lives. It has been proven that gratitude and anxiety cannot coexist in the brain at the same time. Naturally, when you become cognizant of the exact way you fit in this world, and why, the generosity that lives at the foundation of our beings, and the simple ability to exist, seems undeservingly benevolent. It is hard to worry about our outcomes when we recognize how much we might’ve already received. How lucky we are that generosity doesn’t seem so rare anymore, and there is much giving around us. We just have to see it!
And once we’ve taken it in and hugged it hard, we can release it back into the wild for someone else to squeeze. This is what has armored me in my battle against mental illness. This (and an occasional cocktail) is how I’ve learned to eliminate those psychological beasts that can awaken amidst the chaos of everything that is college. Additionally, It has helped me to be kinder to others, and softened my heart in a way that will always lead me in the right direction. This isn’t a “must do”, but it sure might help you in the long run (take the near-dropout’s advice).
There is much more I could write about when it comes to the crazy experiences I’ve had in my time at university (que British accent), but that would be more you’d have to force yourself to read, and you’ve made it this far already.
Nothing good in this life is easy, and anything easy in this life is almost never rewarding. I hope for any highschooler or college freshman reading this, you get to be one of the one’s that just “gets it”. But if it all becomes a little too overwhelming, I hope this helps. If I can make it out feeling like I have so much to hold onto, and fortunately so much to lose, so can you.
Enduring the storm is everything, because so much waits for you on the other side. Trust that you are living the version where it all works out, and even when it doesn’t, you have the capabilities to get through it!
Remember, you’re a rockstar!
Storybank:
A moment from one of my favorite college memories that has taught me perserverance on multiple occasions, a prose of great friendship and finding deeper connections within it:
“When we sat together in that limelight, the reflection of our laughter pouring back onto us off the solarium walls, I was cradled by you for the first time. Because we bellowed and breathed in pretty herbs and wrote a piece about what women must do in their free time. We roared and we wandered, thought this is girlhood woke from long slumber, because I didn’t remember I once had wings. And how beautiful it is easy to see you, not only up close but down to the roots. I want to hear you over and over again. Will you continue singing for me?”