Since I am a sophomore, my first year college experience was significantly altered due to covid. Because of this, I am considering fall 2021 to be the first semester I truly had to navigate balancing it all: a busy social, academic, and personal calendar. And MAN was that hard. Last year, it was easy to justify spending countless hours on my academics because I was a baby freshman coming off a perfectionist high school mindset and there was simply not much going on. However, this year, navigating a proper balance in my life was put to the challenge, and I learned many things about my own priorities, values, and happiness.
You hear this all the time, but I truly do believe that balance is the one of the most important things about college. To me, balance does NOT mean planning out your days down to the minute to make sure there is equal time allotted to academics, personal activities, and social life, but rather taking a moment to consider what makes you happy and working to integrate those aspects of life into your daily routine. It’s important to remember that college is the one time we get to have an insane amount of independence without the stakes being super high. We get to try new things and make mistakes with lesser repercussions, time to figure it out, and ideally, a strong social support network.
There’s going to be aspects of college that you don’t like or don’t want to prioritize, but that’s just life. You’re not going to want to study for your impossible orgo exam or stay up until 4am completing a project, but you’re going to do it because it will help you achieve your future career, which is something that will (ideally) contribute to your ultimate happiness. It’s the integration of the little things into your daily routine that make you happy that will keep you sane and make you say that college was the best four years of your life.
Now, time for what I titled this post: my takeaways from this first non-covid semester (by non-covid, I mean we have mandatory vaccination and more normalcy, covid is still VERY much prevalent).
Takeaway 1: Make time for the people you love! And even people you don’t know! I may just be a total people person, but social interaction gets me through the tough, frustrating, and seemingly hopeless times in my life! You can do simple things like stop in your friends room and say hi, have a conversation with the someone you run into on a walk, or plan to go to lunch/dinners with others. You have the time to spare and it will be so worth it in the long run!
Takeaway 2: Make time for your passions! It is worth delaying your homework a bit to put a smile on your face. Whether it’s exercise, a new hobby, or a social activity… DO IT. I recently have made the time to get some movement in every day and write through journaling and blogging and it has had a huge impact on my mood.
Takeaway 3: You do not need to do it all. At the beginning of the semester, I was way overcommitted. I realized that a position I had planned on holding for awhile just wasn’t fulfilling anymore so I decided to take a step back to focus on things I really cared about. I felt so relieved and am now able to devote my time to the important things in my life.
This balance I am describing feels nearly impossible to achieve at times. I am definitely still navigating my way through figuring this out for myself. I have not achieved a perfect balance but have been able to get much closer by prioritizing my passions and taking the time each day to do things that make me feel joy. I encourage you to reflect upon this idea and do one thing today that puts a smile on your face!