Student Engagement: The New FOMO

It’s that time of the year when, as university students, all we see on social media are opportunities to get involved. We’re flooded with extracurricular openings, internship applications and the promise of a new year full of unique experiences, personal growth and the chance to get ahead. Everywhere we look, we seem to find people who have the same ambitions and yet are somehow doing even more than us. 

She’s the president of two extracurricular clubs. 

Wow, he has two jobs, volunteers all the time and still has time to do well in school!

We think to ourselves, 

How do they do it? They must be having the best college experience! I should be doing more… I only have four years… If I want to have the best university experience I have to do EVERYTHING. At least everything I can fit into my schedule. 

As we take on the new year, I want to send out a much needed reminder to anyone who needs it.

You are not defined by how much you do. You do not have to be over-involved to be of worth. As long as you’re doing something to put yourself out there, you’re getting the ultimate university experience. There is such a thing as doing too much. 

I’m not saying you shouldn’t get involved or that in order to get involved you have to sacrifice either your social life, your academics or any other part of your life. Some of my best university experiences have definitely come from getting involved and those famous ‘working hard, playing hard’ moments. But I have also had moments when I have so much on my plate, I start dreading going to club meetings. I start wanting to take on the simplest projects—instead of the most exciting ones—and I start looking at everything as a burden. All because I’m burnt out from trying to experience everything university has to offer. 

I have to stop and tell myself, 

Camila, there are hundreds of job and volunteer positions at Queen’s and over 300 clubs. You physically cannot do it all. No one can. 

And there’s the key. The healthiest thing would be to stop caring about how everyone else is living their lives, what they do or don’t do. But at the end of the day, in our little university bubble, we will always compare ourselves to others to some degree. So, for those of us who get carried away looking at extracurricular openings and really feel the ‘FOMO’ in terms of student engagement, here’s my tip; even when you think everyone is doing more than you, “living more”, achieving more, stop for a moment before you start frantically sending in dozens of extracurricular applications. Everyone you see on social media is just like you, just one person with endless ambitions yet with limited time and energy. No one is doing everything, even if we would like to. 

So, now that we’ve objectively demonstrated that no one can do it all, let’s talk about what we can do.  

I think that we owe it to ourselves to make the most out of university, and every year after, for that matter. But that looks different for everyone and no matter how organized and motivated you are, I promise you that there is such a thing as too much. 

Would you rather take on so many things you no longer enjoy any of them or would you rather take on enough that you’re putting yourself out there while enjoying and appreciating every little and big part of what you do?

Hopefully, you agree with me that the second option is way better. Put yourself out there, but do it because it makes you happy, not because you feel pressured to do it. University is a great time to experiment and try new things, but at the end of your degree, no one will remember how much you did or didn’t do. Only you will remember whether you actually enjoyed yourself and learned new things or whether you overcommitted to the point of exhaustion. 

There’s no perfect balance—I still have surges of energy when I want to take on the whole world and other days when I think I’ve gone overboard with my commitments. We’re all different and we can all take on different things. Just make sure you’re choosing your level of involvement based on how much you’re getting out of it and not based on pressure to be ‘cool & overinvolved’.

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