Society is no longer in a phase in which the number of college students is sparse. In fact, more students are attending college now more than ever.
Four-year universities generally overflow with admissions from high school seniors, as the anticipation of starting a new juncture in life becomes increasingly exciting.
Once we get to college, though, the luster is certainly lost to some extent, as the ideal scenario, we may have envisioned during 12th grade Latin class has now been taken over by an overwhelming amount of schoolwork. With all of the stress, it’s easy to fall into a strict routine. Get up, go to class, engage in extracurricular activities, have fun on the weekend.
Maybe for you, routine means being as engaged with on-campus activities as you possibly can be, or maybe it means staying off the grid, so to speak. Regardless, routine is tough to avoid.
Consistency isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s certainly better to be organized than to have a tumultuous day-to-day routine. But routine can sometimes render us blind to the incredible and force us to only focus on the past or the future.
Fretting over past mistakes and irrationally worrying about the future creates stress-related, sleepless nights. But the present is worth dedicating thought to as well. After all, "now" is real.
As college students, we all have a single joint bond: our youth and energy. That’s what is supposed to make college the best time in someone’s life. The proverbial “real world” problems don’t exist yet, and fun is a relatively regular occurrence.
So sometimes, breaking away from the norm is the best possible solution. Because chances are, there are things on campus you haven’t done, people you haven’t met and Netflix series you haven’t started.
It’s in our nature as human beings to take things for granted, so it’s not crazy to realize that’s what we sometimes do with college. The terrific opportunities, remarkable people, and vivid memories seem to be more valuable once we’ve graduated.
Andy Bernard from "The Office" once said, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
You’re in the good old days right now. So live in the now. After all, there’s no place more spectacular to live.
College goes by very, very quickly, but you don’t really realize the magnitude of the speed until you’re the one living it. Perhaps it’s our older siblings who have told us to “enjoy it while it lasts,” but those act as merely words until we’re able to attribute feeling to it.
The fact of the matter is that four years, in the overall scheme of things, is not a big chunk of time. In four years, Miley Cyrus went from Hannah Montana into an edgy pop singer. Four years equates to 1,460 days, so you might as well make them count and enjoy them while they last.
Before you leave college and end your four years as an undergraduate student, do everything you want to.
For me personally, I transferred after my first year, so even though I feel like a sophomore, I’m really a junior and those aforementioned “real world” problems are starting to rear their ugly head. Sometimes it's impossible for me to not think about the past or the unexpected future.
Before you know it, your time at college becomes nothing more than a memory in a conversation with your coworkers. In four years, try to leave no door unopened.
Sometimes it’s better to open a door and see something that isn’t meant to be than to never know at all. Since there’s no way to go back and re-experience college, it’s not erroneous to say an unseized opportunity may be a once-in-a-lifetime one, too.
We will never has much free time as we have as college students, so the time may as well be taken full advantage of. Because before you know it, your "now" becomes work and your college memories become your "past."
Like Dave Matthews said, "The future is no place to put your better days."
