30 Things I Actually Learned in College

School Blog - Post One

November 17, 2023

 

I learned a lot in college: how to cheat without getting caught, how to do the bare minimum work for the highest grade possible (work smarter not harder folks), who will not be a good group partner simply by looking at them, and so much more valuable information to survive the upper education gauntlet. But now, as I’ve graduated college, all of this knowledge has become useless and irrelevant. So, I’m putting some lessons I’ve learned from this time in my life in this blog post to help the next generation in not just surviving, but thriving in university. 

(Please keep in mind that my school experience was specific to me and all of this should be taken with a grain of salt; also all of these are with the assumption that you’re wanting to be a passing student and are in college to get a degree you more or less believe in.)

  1. When faced with a class without friends, but an interesting topic, sit near the front rows of the class. It will not only help you stay focused and look good to the professor, but it will limit the amount of social interaction you’ll have with strangers (which for me was a goal). 

  2. Now, for a class with no friends and a boring topic, sit in the middle or back of the classroom. Again, it’ll keep you engaged, but if your eyes wander or close momentarily, it won’t be as noticeable or distracting to the teacher or students around you.

  3. Okay, last one for this topic – if you have friends in the class and an interesting topic, be sure to sit wherever your friends sit but in the front chairs of the group you create. For example, four friends grab four tables, so you sit in one of the two front chairs. It’ll keep you focused on the class while the teacher is talking, but during break you can still easily turn around and chat. 

  4. When in college, go to events, parties, and gatherings but not at the detriment of any schoolwork, tests, classes, or classmates. You can have fun of course, but every class you miss is money lost and tests made complicated, so maybe skip the kegger on a Tuesday night before a test.

  5. To contradict my previous point, memories are forever, so going to said kegger on a Tuesday night before a test may be the memory you want to carry with you, rather than the memory of studying and acing a test. It’s ultimately and finally up to you, so make the best decision for where you’re at. Just know, your future self will either thank you or hate you.

  6. Don’t fall into the FOMO trap. There will always be another party, another event, another game night. Being afraid to miss out on something most likely stupid and draining is no reason to regret not studying or taking a break.

  7. In a similar vein, take breaks. College is a LOT and being go go go all the time will cause burn out and most likely end in you wanting to quit everything. Do yourself the favor and take as many nights as you need to stay in, watch movies, do some shadow work, and be alone. If you’re an introvert this one is especially for you … don’t burn yourself out when it could’ve been avoided from a couple more nights in.

  8. This time in your life is most likely the first time you’ve been away from home, and if you’re not away from home it’s the first time you aren’t legally obligated to be somewhere 8 hours a day. Take this time to figure out what brings you passion, fire in your soul, and excites you beyond belief … what makes you feel alive. Getting a degree is great, but having passion projects and side hustles either during or outside of school is necessary for generally loving your life.

  9. You will make friends. The what-if’s in your mind – what if no one likes me, what if I don’t find friends, what if I can’t find people I like? All of that is your brain's way of protecting you, but don’t let it stop you from putting yourself out there. The only way you won’t make friends or meet people you vibe with is if you listen to that voice and allow it to stop you from meeting people. Friends are only strangers you haven’t met yet, so trust that the right people will find you.

  10. Let people come and go. The friends you make first semester may not be your lifelong friends and that may be their purpose in your life. Meet people, see if you’re compatible, and if you aren’t, it has nothing to do with your ability to make friends, moreso that life is making room for the right people to find you.

  11. In my experience, the first semester is always the hardest and most confusing. Especially if you move abroad or somewhere new, the identity you’ve built for the past 18 years will be shattered, causing mass identity crisis and shifts in personality. This is a good thing –you can now create the person you want to become, you don’t have to hold onto the things that held you back before, and you can decide what you want to continue with and what no longer serves you. 

  12. Let yourself grow and change. Don’t feel the need to hold onto your previous identity. The person you once were was created by the environmental factors of your previous life, but your environment has changed; it’s okay to change with it. If you promised yourself you’d never smoke weed (for example) but now have it in front of you and are curious (and it’s safe and not laced), then try it out. It’s okay to try new things, that’s what college is for.

  13. This is one my mom told me before I left and is great advice especially for the ‘goody two shoes’ out there. It’s okay to keep secrets. You don’t have to tell your family everything, they aren’t entitled to your adult life. Of course if you’re in trouble or want to share, then go for it. But if you have an experience you’d rather not tell them, know that you don’t have to. It’s okay to form your own life without their opinions.

  14. Similarly, learn to trust your intuition and opinions. Your parents and family friends are no longer the highest authority in your life, you are. Yes they’ve watched you grow up, yes they will tell you their opinion, and yes you will feel obligated to do exactly as they say. But, unless you want their exact life, their opinion (although still valuable) was shaped at a different time, with their life experiences, and may not be your truth. Their opinions and life experience can be helpful, but on the whole it’s an incredible time to do what you want, make mistakes, and learn from it all. Make decisions for yourself and feel what your body is telling you before reaching out for their advice – your intuition is your guide to everything.

  15. Do some shadow work, therapy, and generally get to know who you’re becoming. Take dumb buzzfeed quizzes and figure out which pizza you are, take the Pottermore quiz to be placed in a Hogwarts house, and always be delusional in your manifestations, because why not. Everything you do now to get to know yourself and shape who you’re becoming, is vital for where you’re going. The goal (at least for me) is to look back on this time in life and realize the growth that occurred. 

  16. Whatever your housing situation, host gatherings. Game nights, healing circles, witchy seances, presentation nights, dinners, birthdays, and really any other excuse to get together. These will create the memories you’re hoping to have in college and early 20’s. These are the things you’ll remember most, so be dedicated to creating them for yourself and your friends.

  17. If you’re taking an elective (aka a non-mandatory class) and it makes you want to die, drop it! It’s not worth the mental turmoil, energy, or time it’ll take to do a class that you don’t need and you hate. You can take other electives later.

  18. But, if you need one more credit to graduate and it happens to be a class you hate, take the mf class. Suck it up and do the bare minimum. C’s get degrees and who knows, you may enjoy it more than you think. Plus, chances are you won’t remember it years down the road, but you’ll at least have a degree to show for it.

  19. Even though the internet is a major part of our society and you can make more money on it than most conventional careers nowadays, the people you meet, lessons you learn, and interesting classes you will take are invaluable. You never know which class might change the trajectory of your life, or which classmate might become your best of friend, or which experience your soul needs to go through. Doing college is still valuable for the reasons that go beyond just getting a degree, plus you can always do an online career afterwards.

  20. There’s no longer such a thing as a stable career. Even as an accountant, doctor, lawyer, dentist etc., the chances that AI will eventually take over, that your current place of work may be shut down due to budget cuts, or that World War III will occur before you graduate, is very high. Becoming a doctor because your parents expect you to be one isn’t guaranteed success. If you want to become a doctor for you, then move forward with it, but don’t do it for someone else’s desires. You have the power to create anything valuable if you plan, consistently work, and dedicate your time to it. Listen to your calling, because chances are if it’s within you you’re meant to pursue it.

  21. Not everything has to be a side hustle. You can take a pottery class, dance class, learn about astrology, become CPR certified, learn to cobble shoes, and so much more simply for the fun of it. You don’t have to make money at something to make it valuable, plus having hobbies will make you not only a more well rounded person, but also allow you to be a full time student and not want to drop out. 

  22. Typically it’s never black and white, life or death. Most of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences will feel like there’s only one right path, one right answer, one right way to move forward, but that’s a fallacy. When lost and trying to figure out your next step, don’t worry about taking the “correct” steps, but rather focus on simply taking one. Most decisions you make can be undone or changed. Just because you chose at 18 that International Relations was the best degree for you doesn’t mean that you’ll want that forever. Especially as you age through college, it’s okay to change your plan and pursue other avenues. 

  23. Don’t let the timing of things dictate your decisions. You may want to graduate in three years, but if it becomes really challenging and you need to give yourself that extra year, do it! If you feel like you should know what major you’re going to have within the first semester of college, but end up not knowing … take your time, it’s better to take a semester off and figure out a game plan than wasting time, money, and resources working towards a degree you’ll end up resenting.

  24. Similarly, choose your degree wisely, you’ll be studying it for the next 3-4 years. I personally find it ridiculous that we’re choosing degrees at 18 and thinking it has to be our life's path, but regardless, take your time to weigh out all the options and choose what you think you’ll enjoy most. It doesn’t have to be the end all be all, it can genuinely just be an area of study that you’re interested in learning. You can always change your mind later.

  25. Have somewhat of a game plan. For many people, post-grad is scary and daunting because they feel unprepared for life outside of school (probably because we’re in a education system that doesn’t teach us how to do basic adult things like pay taxes), but it doesn’t have to be so scary. Make decisions about what you want post-grad life to look like for you. That can mean looking for jobs in your field and reaching out to them, having an idea of where you want to live, the type of environment you want to experience, traveling full time, moving back home for a while, getting a short-term job to make some money, starting a youtube channel, etc. Anything you can imagine can be your post-grad life, you just need to decide what you want that to look like, and the life you’d like to live. Again, you don’t have to stick with that, but making one decision is better than being stuck in indecision purgatory. 

  26. Treat Yourself (but within your boundaries of course, you are still a student haha). Get a daily coffee from your favorite place, buy a sandwich that sets your tastebuds alight, travel to a new city on the weekends, go to concert you desperately want to see. Later in life, you’re going to remember the small and big things you do for yourself now. Your body will remember how you care for yourself and your mind will thrive when you give yourself permission to use your resources, not being rigid and close fisted. Of course, do all of this within your means, but know that money will always come and go, it’s the flow of life. To make the decision to not go out with your friends, who will one day move away and live their own lives without you, because you’re worried you won’t have a few extra dollars at the end of the month will result in you missing out on the beauty of life. Moving through the fear and silencing it with your abundant present reality is the goal. You’ve got this, you’re safe, have fun and make memories.

  27.  Please, please, take care of yourself. College is a time in life when you decide what habits you want to take with you, when you can learn about yourself and grow into the person you’ve always wanted to become. Heavily drinking, eating poorly, and not moving your body will cloud your experiences and make it hard to not only look back on your time in college, but to also move beyond the habits you built during that time in post-grad life. Everything in moderation and trust me when I say you’ll feel better in class the next day if you don’t black out the night before. 

  28. Do the degree you want. I personally did my communications degree because it’s versatile and could be used in anything I wanted to do, and I don’t regret my decision. But would I have rather done a theater degree or art major of some sort, maybe … yeah. I took a lot of classes that, yes, shaped my worldview (which is super important), but I could’ve been taking more inspirational and tailored classes which brought me more joy in life. Choose a degree you think you’ll actually enjoy, it’ll make it easier to stick with and dictate the tools you’ll have moving forward in your career.

  29. You’ll have times of wanting to quit. Every college student I’ve talked to has said at one point or another in their degree they wanted to quit, and some actually did. When faced with these feelings, it makes it easier to stick with it when you find reasons (outside of just getting a degree) to motivate you. My reasons were that I wanted to accomplish the goal I’d been working on for multiple years (prove to myself I was capable), that no one can take my degree away from me once I obtained it, and that to employers, college isn’t about the piece of paper you receive but rather proving you can be consistent and accomplish your goals. It’s messed up that learning isn’t the main priority, but sadly it’s true, and those three reasons were sometimes the only thing keeping me in school.

  30. Your college experience is yours, treat it as such. Roll with the punches, let your people come to you, take everything one day at a time and know that just as quickly as you began your degree you’ll be walking across the stage, shaking hands with staff you’ve never met in your life, and getting the degree you spent the last four or so years working towards. College included all of life’s emotion for me in a few short years; allow yourself the luxury of being confused. It’s okay…you will graduate and you will learn so much from doing so.

Xoxo,

Ayla

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