Fourteen-hundred-sixty-one days. Out of our entire lives, we will only spend 1,461 days as college students. One of the most formative experiences that will shape who we become as individuals is also one of the most fleeting. I have spent the first semester of my college education obsessing over making sure that I was doing everything right, from becoming involved to making friends and doing well in school. I want to make these years some that I can look back on fondly.
However, there is constantly so much pressure for every day to be perfect and every moment to be a memory. If there is one thing I have learned as a Villanovan with one semester under my belt, it is that every day doesn’t have to be perfect. College is meant to be a four-year-long process of growth, experience, struggle and triumph. Some days will be better than others, but the importance in each moment is that we need to embrace the chaos of our journey.
From the moment that I moved to Villanova in August, I felt pressured to get my college experience off on the right foot. Soon enough, I was comparing myself to all of the people around me. Did I have enough friends? Did I join the right clubs? Am I wearing the right clothes? It was exhausting to be going through the college transition while also constantly having this hamster wheel of feelings running through my head. To make matters worse, I was convinced that I was the only freshman feeling this way or thinking these things.
However, when I started to verbalize my feelings to my friends, I realized we were all having the same worries. It seemed so silly: we were comparing ourselves to one another, yet we were all worrying about the same things internally. This shifted my perspective, and I found myself realizing that college is not perfect, in fact, nothing in life is. Like anything else in life, college is what you make of it, and by embracing the bad days and the challenges, you can get the most out of every day of your short experience.
More importantly, I also realized that I cannot compare myself to the people around me, because my experience is going to look extremely different from the person sitting next to me. Is their experience better or worse than mine? No. They are just different. That person is embracing their chaos in the same way that I am embracing mine. So, instead of comparing myself and making myself constantly feel bad for what I could be doing better or doing differently, I am making the conscious decision to put my best foot forward every chance that I get. This also may mean something different every day, one day my best foot forward just may be getting up and going to class, and that is okay.
Social media is constantly perpetuating this college experience where every day is a party, and you are in love with your school from the minute you arrive. I cannot explain the dread I felt as I scrolled social media, convinced that I was the only freshman struggling and questioning every decision I had made. News flash to all of the people scrolling on TikTok convinced that every other student in America is having the perfect college experience, it is all an illusion. I am guilty of posting photos and making it seem like the transition was completely smooth and copacetic. Yet, this isn’t the reality of your freshman year, or any of your four years, because while college is an incredible experience, it is still a journey filled with both ups and downs. I am sick of feeling guilty for having rough days or days where I am not as social or out there as I would like to be.
“This year, I’ve focused on prioritizing academics while maintaining a healthy balance of relaxation and time with friends when I can, rather than making social life my main goal,” freshman Megan Lawn said. “I know why I’m here, and while there is definitely pressure to have the ‘perfect’ college experience, I feel confident and happy staying true to my own path.”
At the end of the day, that is what it is all about, staying true to yourself and confident enough to pave your own path rather than follow that of someone else’s. I understand that it is easier said than done, because I still often find myself setting unrealistic expectations. Yet, removing the weight of everyone’s ideas about your life except for your own, changes the college experience completely. In the end, it’s not about crafting a perfect college experience, but about embracing the chaos, learning from the struggles and celebrating the small victories along the way. Those are the moments that will define who we are and our experience at Villanova.
