The good, the bad, an dthe everything in between
College life is often portrayed as the golden years of one’s life. The photos depict happy college students walking around campus, packed football games, organizational activities, cozy dorms, and lifelong friendships.
However, what about when the lens goes away?
It turns out that college life is not always like what you see in the photos. Indeed, college life can be thrilling, fulfilling, stressful, disappointing, lonely, and unforgettable, all in one week. In fact, there is so much more beyond those activities, classes, dormitories, and cafeterias that should be addressed.
the Good: More Than Just a Degree
One of the greatest aspects of attending college is that it offers you an opportunity to be more than what you are. The campus provides students with an opportunity to meet people whom they would never otherwise meet.
College groups, cultural events, concerts, sports, homecoming activities, and other programs provided by the campus offer students the opportunity to do more than just attend college classes.
While for some students, being in an organization helps them form lifelong friendships, others might simply attend a random campus activity that introduces them to someone who will be a key figure at college.
Campus activities may appear insignificant, but they can generate the most significant memories.
Finding your people
The college experience can be very different if you are lucky enough to join a community in which you feel like you fit in.
There are groups of all kinds, whether you are interested in academics and STEM, faith, leadership, culture, service, or social events. In addition to adding a line to a résumé, these communities can offer students connections, mentorship, encouragement, and a feeling of belonging.
Community can help a student feel a little bit more at home if he or she is away from home for college.
However, joining a community isn’t always an instantaneous process. Some students spend their first term trying out different groups and figuring out where they belong.
When classes start fighting back
Next comes the one part of college that nobody is able to avoid: academics.
One bad test score and suddenly an otherwise calm Tuesday turns into a day full of stress, because the 95 you wanted to get seems more out of reach than ever, and your calculator is the only thing on your mind.
Fortunately, there are academic resources that campuses provide to ensure success.
Tutoring centers, supplemental instruction, academic advisors, study groups, office hours, and many others are all tools that can help you a lot.
However, just having the resource and being able to effectively utilize them are two completely different stories.
Nobody should have to find out that there is help available when they are already failing the course.
Academic support needs to be easily accessible and encouraged from the start.
the reality of housing
The issue of accommodation may be one of the most important aspects of university life for a lot of students since your dorm is not just a place to stay, but also your sleeping, studying, relaxing, and preparing place.
If your accommodation system works fine, it becomes an additional home for you.
If it fails to work, it may have an impact on all other areas of your life.
Maintenance, hygiene, lack of space, washing machines, internet connection, roommate relations, noise, and communication may become the reasons that make you stressed even in such a place where you could be relaxed.
While students are expected to perform well in classes, their environment is important as well.
A student does not always separate his/her class experience from accommodation conditions.
The cost of being a college student
Then there is the monetary aspect of college life which does not always make it to the campus brochure.
Tuition is just a component of it.
There are books, materials, transport, food, accommodation, other fees, and the random extra charges which happen to crop up at the most inconvenient moments.
Scholarships and financial assistance can be helpful in such circumstances, but sometimes financial assistance courses are akin to the classes you have never enrolled in.
This is yet another burden that students have to bear silently.
the college experience nobody posts
Social media has made a highlight reel of college life.
There’s the outfit.
There’s the party.
There’s the friend.
There’s the celebration.
There’s the graduation picture.
But there’s no picture of the student who is upset after an exam, sitting by themselves at the cafeteria table, making a phone call to their parents because they miss home, stressing over finances, unable to make friends, or wondering if they are doing enough.
That’s also college.
Feeling stressed out doesn’t mean that you are failing at college.
Not having your life put together doesn’t mean that all your peers have theirs in order.
Sometimes, the student sitting quietly in the back of the class is facing a lot more than people realize.
The hidden power of campus community
However difficult this process may prove to be, college can also be the place where students learn about new aspects of themselves.
A student who used to be scared of speaking up becomes a leader.
A person who never had any intention of engaging in research finds his love for science.
The one who did not feel like part of anything learns that organizations exist on campus, and he finds friends.
A student comes into college undecided about his future, but leaves it more determined than ever before.
College is not only a place of education, but also a place of developing self-confidence, independence, friendship, leadership, strength and identity.
What students really need
Creating the best university experience does not involve fooling everyone into thinking everything is perfect.
It involves listening.
Students require chances, but they also require resources. They require fun activities, but they also require safe and comfortable accommodation. They require academic requirements, but they also require support. They require community, but they also require knowing that it is fine to feel bad.
Student experience is not about attendance, grades, or graduation rates.
Sometimes, it’s the little things that count.
Are there people who can assist students where required?
Are they able to remain financially?
Are they listened to?
Are they safe?
Are they accepted?
The truth
Campus life is not merely good or bad.
Campus life is both.
Campus life is being at an event, only to find that half the people there are friends. Campus life is staying up late before an exam that seems way too difficult. Campus life is making a friend. Campus life is having a housing problem that makes you feel like pulling your hair out. Campus life is discovering something that will help you do well. Campus life is feeling homesick. Campus life is enjoying the fact that you’ve achieved something impossible.
College is not neat and tidy.
College is unpredictable.
College is both beautiful and frustrating.
That is the reality of campus life.
There’s always a story behind every campus event. There’s always a story behind every door in the dormitory. There’s always a person behind every GPA. There’s always a reality behind every happy photo.
Campus life is not always as perfect as advertised.
-Written by Endiyah Turner, Chapter Writer