College is the Best Four Years of Your Life

“Enjoy it while you can!”

As a graduating senior, I’ve been told this time and time and time again. The sentiment is always the same: college is supposed to be the pinnacle of my life experiences, a time of carefree living and boundless opportunity that I’ll never get back. While recognizing the doors that attending college has opened up for me, and the great privileges I’ve been afforded, I can’t help but feel that this advice is more myth than reality.

For centuries, higher education has held a great cultural stake in America. Universities are places where boys become men, Fortune 500 companies are started and, amongst predominantly privileged groups of students, where we will have more fun in four years than ever again in our lives.

Movies and social media paint a picture of endless parties, finding your best friends and a perfect balance between academics and personal freedom. However, the truth of my college experience has been far more complex and, often, far less glamorous.

The reality of college has included struggling to understand complex philosophical theories in the library and grinding out math homework at the last minute to fulfill a core requirement. It’s been a time of personal growth and self-reflection, but also a time of significant stress and anxiety.

The transition to moving across the country away from home was not seamless. I had to learn to manage my time better, set boundaries in new relationships and determine how and where I wanted to spend my time. All important life skills that were necessary for me to do, but not always easy or fun nonetheless.

College didn’t breed an instant connection with the perfect group of friends like I had imagined. It took time to find my people, and, along the way, I faced loneliness and self-doubt. Building meaningful relationships took time and effort, and there were many moments when I felt out of place or overwhelmed by the sheer number of different identity-forming social groups around me.

I started college in a sorority, later joined the outdoors club as a trip leader and now I enjoy teaching yoga classes at Malley and working with kids with autism-spectrum disorder. Forming a sense of self in college hasn’t been linear, and I have learned that it never will be.

I came to college right after high school and completed my degree in four years. But the pressure for college to always look this way shames students who need to work before starting school, have to take time off for their mental health or otherwise stray from the “normal” timeline. This myth that college needs to be done a certain way leads students who take a different path to feel like “the other,” like they’re doing something wrong.

To those saying to enjoy the lifestyle of college while I can, I do not yet have the hindsight to feel nostalgic. However, the ability to design your own schedule, live in a house with your friends and go to a frat party on a Wednesday stick out as unique time and place circumstances that will probably look very different a few years from now.

Even so, the proposal that I have peaked, already lived my best years, that everything’s downhill from here does not sit right with me.

Whether you’re 18 or 70, to peg anything as the “best of your life” is a gutting amount of pressure. Our culture breeds “best of” lists, accolades and favoritism, but determining “the best” is a personal pursuit over time rather than following a preconceived notion defined by someone else.

The myth that college is the best four years of my life set the expectation that my time at Santa Clara should have been perfect, which often led to disappointment and disillusionment when reality fell short. College has undoubtedly been a pivotal and impactful period. I’ve made great friendships, learned a lot from my professors, fallen in love and I’ve adored living in the Bay Area. With all that said and done, I am also very hopeful and excited for the next four years.