I hate college. Not to be confused with my title, I don’t consider myself any smarter than anyone else on campus, but I do think I am able to comprehend what is going on around me better. The fact is that were told to go off to college to try things we wouldn’t usually do, talk to people we usually wouldn’t talk to and overall just branch out. However this is totally contradicted by the fact that every student is told how to choose classes, how to make friends and how to live THEIR life. I think the idea of the famed “College Experience” is far fetched in todays society. Just yesterday i overheard a girl telling her boyfriend that they would not be able to spend spring break together next year because “spring break is for college friends.” Is it? Are you required to hang out with your college friends or did someone tell you that was how college is supposed to be? Another point of mine is that these students are not aiming to please themselves but rather to appear better than they consider themselves in the media. Did it actually happen if it wasn’t on instgram? as a matter of a fact it did and instgram should be used as an outlet not as a basis of living your life based on what will get you past 500 likes. I am very sick of college and I wish there was a college/place where people did what they wanted for themselves and no one else.
@mcrenrunran No one or no thing has told me anything about this (other than, how to actually register for classes online).
I’m not sure who told that girl that statement – you can do essentially whatever you please during spring break, whether it be hanging out with college friends, hanging out with non-college friends, sleeping, partying, etc. Up to a reasonable limit, of course.
Unfortunately this is true for many younger students…I have never used Instagram but a few of my friends’ Facebook profiles might fall into that category. I usually just ignore or defriend them.
I feel like you are a little conflicted about what you should do in college versus what your friends or other people think you should do in college. That’s okay; many people feel that way. In my opinion, college should be whatever you decide to make it.
Totally agree with this, however it seems to be a lot more restricting and leave less room for your imagination than what you hear about. Obviously this could just be a particular school. @MITer94
A major aspect of the college experience is learning how to be true to yourself, and to excel despite what others around you are doing. Not everyone has your level of maturity yet. Everyone develops at a different rate.
And guess what. Life is like that even after college.
College is a privilege and a choice in our society. College is time of transition from adolescence to adulthood for the people who go for four to five years immediately after high school. College is a place for individuals to get a post-secondary education that can serve as a foundation for a lifelong career. There are necessarily requirements to earn that education to include how courses are sequenced and selected. College is a place to learn and grow. Everything else that is bundled into the “college experience” is just icing on the top of the college cake and you get to frost your cake the way you want to.
And if you hate it so much, you can survive without a college education. Your income potential may suffer without a college education, but like college that too is a choice.
@NorthernMom61 what i meant was i hate the expectations of college other than to get an education. It makes me upset when kids say they “have” to do things but not in reference to school. I very much enjoy the school side of things.
That is great that you have the proper perspective for why you are there. You can also choose to ignore the fluff or extraneous stuff.
College students are still teenagers and aren’t always going to be the most mature. Sure, they’re going to do irresponsible things and not always be focused on schoolwork, but I think that’s life.
But it seems like all you want college to be about is the classes aspect (I’m assuming that’s what you meant in your previous post about hating expectations of college other than to get an education.) I think that yes, college is about getting a degree and taking classes, but it’s also an education in other aspects too. I do think the social part is important. Of course not everyone has to partake in partying and the classic spring break trips to the Panama City Beach and the like, but I think the social part is a good thing. It’s a chance to have fun while getting an education, branch out and make friends of all types. College is a time in your life when you have a lot of opportunities (and not just class opportunities, but social, work, etc.) and personally I enjoy that. I realize not everyone might, but I do think that college itself is about more than just taking classes and colleges recognize that — hence having a Department of Student Life that’s geared towards the “out of class” experience.
I mean, sure, we’re here to get an education, and maybe some people take it a little too far in the opposite direction with social stuff and posing on Instagram, but so what? Everyone has their own priorities and maybe some will realize later that they felt like they were doing something just to be cool, but I think others might seem to just go with the in crowd but also truly enjoy doing whatever they’re doing. Your priority is classwork, but that’s just one facet to college, in my opinion. I’ve learned a lot since coming to college, most of it coming from outside the classroom.
That’s just my .02 and I understand where you’re coming from, but think you’re a little wrapped up into other people’s lives maybe.
Perhaps this is regional/individual college thing…? I grew up in the Midwest and I haven’t gotten the whole “over-achiever” vibe from most people.
I do agree that high schoolers should be made aware of alternate paths after high school aside from college, though.
Anyways, OP I think you just have to focus doing what you think is important. You’re going to drive yourself insane by criticizing and pondering over other people’s priorities.
There is really no place on earth where people simply do what they want for themselves 100% of the time. Humans are social creatures; we are always taking into account the feelings and opinions of others when we make decisions - our friends, our coworkers, our employers or potential employers, the police/government, etc. Some people are more or less influenced by the opinions of others, but your experience isn’t unique to being a college student. It exists wherever hundreds or thousands of people gather to work together.
What can you really tell from a conversation a young woman has with her boyfriend? It’s possible she said that because she’s trying to let him down easy. It’s possible that she was using that as an excuse because she really wanted to spend spring break with her friends and didn’t know a better way to tell him.
I have one child who has moved on from HS friends and only does stuff with College friends. I have another that does stuff with both. It’s up to you what you want to do.
And like other say, there is still a structure to college, but you get more freedom than HS. Once you graduate you can do whatever you want.
You have the power to stop listening to them. You should exercise it.
College tends to bring out the worst in a lot of people.
At my school, there definitely seems to be a divide between the students who want this place to give them “the college experience” and those who simply want to go to school and have either no social life (yes, my school has a population that plugs itself into computer games at the end of the day and does nothing else) or a social life of their choosing, like my close-knit, happy little crew of friends. Yes, there are aspects of the “college experience” I have been privy to, either personally or through others. One of my roommates used to not return to our room until 7 AM Sunday after Saturday night parties. At certain times, one end of our hallway smells distinctly skunk-like. While I don’t know all the gossip since I prefer to avoid it, I do know that several hookups have happened on our floor. Instagram and Snapchat rule some peoples’ lives.
But at least for some of us, there are alternatives. You do actually get to choose what sort of social life you have. You don’t have to be hooking up or prescribe to any other college life trope. Spring break can be for college friends or high school friends. But for me at least, it was visiting my godparents for a few days (my parents live in Asia so it would have been quite a trek to spend three days with them), then returning to school on Wednesday and having some downtime before classes resumed the following Monday. I met my boyfriend because we were both in the fencing club, did laundry at the same time, and one time while we were waiting for our clothes to dry we got in an intense discussion of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series (this isn’t a random hookup by the way. We’ve been dating nearly six months now).
As for not being able to choose your classes, I’m sure depending on what school you go to that will change as you go through getting your degree and start specializing. But first you need a foundation that allows you to understand the more complex or specialized topics that you will get to later. And a college can’t just make a degree out of a bunch of random classes you took because they looked interesting. But I’m sure as you go along within your major, you will have more of a choice on that front.
tl;dr It is up to you to make what you wish out of your college experience. Just because other people choose the pop culture version does not mean you are required to do the same.
Sorry for the long post.
–GG19