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There’s a time and a place for everything — it’s called college.
We’ve all encountered stereotypes regarding university life, be they in movies or everyday speech, “College is crazy,” “It’s a time for experimentation” and, “You’ll never experience such a strange and cool place as college.” While your experience may not live up to the cinematic representation of higher education, there is some truth to these seemingly tired, unilateral platitudes.
It’s true. College is much more than a place to sit in on lectures. The discovery and pursuit of personal interests is a vital and often overlooked aspect of the college experience. Classes are necessary because they give us the hard data we need to succeed in the professional sector, but self-discovery and exploration of our environment is how we learn about ourselves and other people — an equally important product of a legitimate education.
When our parents remind us these are the best years of our lives, they aren’t referring to the immense joy of listening to a decrepit economics professor in an equally weathered tweed jacket drone on about supply and demand. They are talking about our other role as students, our non-academic responsibilities to ourselves and to our community.
In high school, you may have called them “extracurricular activities” and if you are anything like me, you dreaded and avoided them at all costs. Who wants to volunteer to give sponge baths at a senior citizen center, anyway?
But college is the perfect place to exact the point of intersection between your bona fide interests and these extracurricular activities.
Get out there, live a little, keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to try new things.
A large part of our role as students is to experience a vast spectrum of stimuli to determine which things — activities, philosophies, pedagogies and the like — make us happy and which ones upset us. They serve a greater purpose than having a few laughs with friends. Figuring out what hobbies and interests captivate us can help us hone in on a career choice that will ultimately make us happier than the course of study that brought us to school in the first place.
For example, I arrived at college as an uncreative and unmotivated business major. I begrudgingly slogged my way through what seemed to be an endless expanse of economics classes before attending a Sigma Tau Delta open-mic night and consequently discovered my penchant for English.
I changed my major and started receiving e-mails and announcements informing me of opportunities in my field to practice writing, to listen to professional writers read their work and to secure potential job leads. In fact, that’s how I wound up as an opinion columnist, but there are a multitude of other benefits to realizing and pursuing your interests while in college.
From a psychological standpoint, the more interests and knowledge you have, the easier it becomes to learn new things. The process of assimilation is the psychological function which enables us to incorporate new information. It works by creating links or associations to things we already know. Thus, the broader your foundation of knowledge, the easier it becomes to learn and recall information — like adding rungs to a ladder to make it easier to climb.
Furthermore, an added bonus to engaging in hobbies and pursuing interests is stress reduction. When you’re overwhelmed by classes, homework, a job or perhaps a relationship, it’s enormously beneficial to have an outlet to turn to — something to take your mind off of things for a while.
A hobby or non-academic interest, as long as it’s healthy — beer pong and drunken tricycle racing at Madison Bear Garden don’t count — can help you lead a happier, healthier life.
When you get out into the real world, you probably won’t have the time or the energy to try a bunch of new things. It’s important to discover and establish your interests and hobbies before you leave school so you already have the tools to make yourself happy and healthy when you get a job.
Don’t let such a precious time slip by, we may never have the opportunity to explore so much again. Classes are as important as anything else, but, as the adage goes, don’t let school get in the way of your education.
James Jelenko can be reached at
jjelenko@theorion.com
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