Not everyone is lucky enough to pursue college after high school. But for those who are, college is perhaps one of the most memorable periods in life. It is a challenging time for most, and few get out of it saying it’s been a breeze.
Fortunately, I got out of it alive, and here I am now, telling you the story. Here are ten things I learned while crawling my way toward a diploma.
1. Living alone is exciting . . . at first
When I was in high school, I hardly thought about the graduation ceremony itself. I only cared about leaving. I wanted to get out and move to a new city, where I could finally have my own room and have a larger allowance. To appreciate the latter, you should know that I wasn’t given monetary allowance until college. Our house was literally next to the high school I went to (we had a common wall), so I didn’t need money for fare, and I was usually just given biscuits for snacks. When I was finally graduating, I packed up all of my stuff and got ready to move out. My father and my brother came with me to my room in college and helped me set up. I was so excited about my newfound freedom. That lasted for about thirty seconds.
After my father and brother pulled out of the parking area, I took the whole thing in, and it dawned on me that I was all alone. Because I arrived really early to get settled in advance, I was the only one in the boarding house. The silence was deafening. After I realized that I would be on my own for the next five years, I dropped to my knees and cried. (I’m not kidding or exaggerating here. I literally went on all fours and bawled my eyes out.)
2. I’m not as good as I thought I was
I was an achiever in high school. I joined almost all of the contests in school, and I graduated as the valedictorian of our class. So I was super confident when I came to college. And then I discovered that the valedictorians and honorable mentions from different schools in different cities were my classmates. I went from super confident to super nervous. So what if I won in the division level for a math competition in high school? Others were competitors in the national rounds. What if I won in the nationals for journalism? Others already went abroad to present their speeches or their papers. Suddenly, my achievements didn’t seem that amazing anymore. The panic monster had settled in. When we were discussing about differentiation in math class, I was surprised to see my classmates not taking notes and nodding the whole time as if they already had this lesson. When I asked them, they said they in fact already did. I felt down and cheated. It wasn’t fair! We weren’t even getting off on the same level!
Over the course of five years, I discovered that a lot of people feel the same way. But your past does not define your future. A lot of achievers in high school mellowed down in college. They were just another student in the room. On the other hand, a lot of students who didn’t do too well in high school suddenly blossomed in college. There are a lot of things that could happen and change. College is definitely a new and improved battleground, and those who are not willing to fight will ultimately succumb to the pressure.
3. Budgeting is harder than I thought
As I mentioned earlier, I did not have a monetary allowance in high school. So when my father deposited one year’s worth of allowance to my account, I went nuts. I shopped a lot and bought a lot of things that I thought I needed. My boardmate often teased me about the number of bags I had. I thought that the money would never run out. It was such a huge amount. Then one day, I realized my money was, in fact, not unlimited. My allowance was more than enough for my needs, but somehow, I ended up short of cash. It was then that I finally did my research on budgeting, saving up money, and investing. I learned the hard way that money is difficult to handle without discipline. It’s still a struggle now, to be honest, but at least I know better than to buy three new bags in a week just because I was in the mood to do so.
4. Some teachers inspire. Others push.
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| Source: http://popkey.co/m/azG1m-im+a+pusher-mean+girls-tina+fey-lol |
There are some teachers who will give you all the support you need if you just ask them to. They will be patient in entertaining your questions and adjust their lessons according to the class’s average learning speed. Their exams are also generally easier. These are the teachers you want to have, and every enrolment period, you silently pray that they will be the ones handling your classes for the next semester.
On the other hand, there are some teachers who will push you to your limit and drown you with course materials that you need to cram into your brain before finally having that tiny chance of passing their ridiculously difficult exams.
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| Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/549579960748291673/ |
These are the teachers who will make you feel like college is a living hell. They are usually willing to answer your questions, but you find yourself crawling back to your shell before even mustering up the courage to ask them. However, these are the most memorable and important teachers, in my opinion. College is about challenging yourself to become better. It’s about knowing your weakness and finding ways to improve on your problem points. Without these teachers, college will just be high school part 2. There isn’t much growth and improvement. Try to remember the teacher whom you found absolutely terrifying. Remember that feeling of accomplishment when you were finally able to graduate from their course even though you got out of it by the skin of your teeth. Would you be the strong person you are today without the experiences they gave you?
If you’re already a graduate, chances are you answered the above questions with a light feeling. If you’re still in college, however, you might be rolling your eyes right now. It’s okay. I get it.
5. Time management is yours to master
When you’re in college and you live alone, you’ll soon realize that you didn’t bring your alarm clock with you—your mom. Before, there was no need for annoying sounds to wake you up because your mom is annoying enough to get you out of bed. (Don’t get me wrong. I love that about my mom. It’s practical and handy.) Also, that same alarm clock had already served you breakfast. All you have to do is get your butt to the table and chew. In college, if you don’t have a reliable—in this case, loud enough—alarm that will wake you up, chances are you’re going to miss a lot of classes. Waking up is not your only problem though. How are you going to finish reading and answering the course materials assigned to you?
If you don’t know how to manage your time well, you’ll find yourself in school early in the morning, trying to copy that day’s assignment from your classmate because you weren’t able to do it yourself. And you do this without having breakfast (’cause you didn’t have time for that) and sometimes even without taking a bath (’cause it’s a long assignment and you literally just got out of bed).
Then after class, you’ll find yourself bored, annoyed, and hungry. Hey, grab a Snickers!* Then you spend the day going to more classes and copying more assignments. At night, you reward yourself for a very tiring day with playing video games, going out, or watching a “few” episodes of that TV series you reallyneed to catch up with. So you end up staying up late and waking up late, and the horrid cycle begins again. Cheers to us for being so consistent!
*This post is not sponsored by Snickers.
6. Laundry is a legit problem
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| This is my laundry basket from college. I miss it. But I don’t miss the laundry at all. |
Growing up, I didn’t have ample training when it comes to laundry. Knowing this, my father included a laundry allowance so I wouldn’t have to worry about having clean clothes to wear. Over time, however, when I was about to go short on cash (see item 3), I had to roll up my sleeves (sometimes literally) and get to work. I found out washing your clothes is tiresome. Then I wondered why our labandera(laundrywoman) back home agrees with her daily salary. It hurts your back and your hands and take up a day of what could have been time spent for studying or hanging out with friends. I know I’m not alone in this, though. I would often hear other students missing out social events and get-togethers because they needed to do the laundry. Who knew a big pile of dirty clothes could hurt your social life?
7. Hygiene is oftentimes optional
When you haven’t disciplined yourself in the time management area, you’d end up going to class without taking a shower. Also, during the exam times, you’re going to find yourself staying up so late and sometimes not even getting a blink of sleep that you’re not even allowed to touch water. I had experienced this a thousand times in college. During exams, my classmates and I would meet up and study. We’d study until morning, have a quick breakfast, and take the exam. We’ve only had two hours of sleep. No one is allowed to go home to quickly fix themselves up because that was unfair to the others. Our boarding house was located just beside the school, so if I wanted to, I could easily have changed my clothes and tried to look better. But my classmates were persistent, so we went directly to the exam looking like zombies and smelling like hobos.
The “freshness” of a student is actually an indicator of how prepared they were for the exam. If you had the luxury of having the time to touch soap that morning, you can be one of the following: you were prepared, you knew the test was not going to be that hard, or you just didn’t care anymore. The zombies, on the other hand, are the students who know they have a high chance of failing but are willing to stake their lives to try. That’s why we ended up smelling like fresh corpses. We’ll die trying.
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| Source: http://www.stealingshare.com/zombie-apocalypse-real/ |
8. Breakfast, dinner, and lunch don’t exist
When I received my class schedule during my first semester ever in college, I realized I had a class that ended at 1:30 p.m. I usually had lunch around twelve. Confused, I looked at my father and asked him if we were going to have a lunch break in between classes. Knowing him, he never allowed us to eat our meals late. There was one time in high school when I tried skipping breakfast. He called me on the phone and demanded that I come back that instant or he would drag me back. So I was incredulous when he said that I’d have to eat lunch afterclass. Because of that, I learned a new word—brunch. Why have two meals that’s going to take up more time when you can have just one?
Over time, I lost track of what I ate and when I ate. Sometimes, we would stay at school until nine or ten. During our thesis period, we’d eat whenever we had the time. Sometimes, we’ll just be too tired to even be thinking of food, so we’d just go home and drop dead on the bed.
9. A lot of places become study areas
When you’re trying to cram for an exam in a course that you absolutely need to pass or else you’re going to stay an extra year in college, anywhere is a good enough place to study. The hallway floor suddenly seems cleaner than it really is. So you sit down and read. I have tried studying in a bakeshop. I have tried studying in church.* I slept in so many boarding houses and annoyed so many other boarders who were trying to sleep.
The twenty-four-hour fast food chain made the mistake of opening forever in front of a university. Students mostly just order the cheapest food available and stay there all night.
Sorry, McDonalds. You’ll have to find extra chairs and tables for your other customers ’cause we ain’t leavin’ till mornin’.
*a million thanks to the brothers and sisters who supported me all the way
10. College is a time for self-discovery
So far, I’ve presented only nine lessons I learned during college, but there are so many others I haven’t talked about. But no matter how many lessons there are, the most important lessons will be from the mistakes I made, which made me discover more about myself. College was a tough time for me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. There were a lot of times when I just wanted to pack up my bags and give up. I didn’t have my family with me, who could have given me the much-needed support. My friends, although they were there, had problems of their own and were also as lost as I was.
College is a time for making mistakes and learning. I learned about what I liked and disliked. I learned that some friendships are not meant to last. I learned that life is hard, but the taste of victory is sweet. It dawned on me that there are still so many things I need to learn and so many mistakes I have yet to make. The greatest lesson those five years had taught me is that I alone am weak. Whether or not you believe in a higher power, remember that you don’t have to fight the battle alone, and there’s a lot more in store for you after college. As my father always says, “College is just the training ground where you learn the basics. The theories you learn in school will be worthless if you don’t know how to make it in the real world. The real war starts after graduation.”
Happy training, everyone!
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