If my first year of college was an adjustment (it was), my second year was a strange combination of settling in and struggling.
I’ve told you before that I made the odd choice to complete all the classes at the core of the economics major back to back, and sometimes alongside one another. Why? Frankly, I wanted it over with. I wanted to be able to say I was done with something. Aaaand I apparently wanted to make this past year as hard on myself as I could.
Quick summary: I spent 12-16 hours a week on an econ class every quarter, plus about 8-12 hours a week on statistics or econometrics for two quarters. I also spent a lot of time reading Smith, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Freud, Marcuse, and de Beauvoir (among others) for a class called Self, Culture, and Society, and I took an intro to international relations and a Spanish class.
It was a lot and I simultaneously handled it really well and really terribly. Let’s break it down kind of like I did last year so you can see what I’m talking about and what I learned.
On Classes and Academics
Your teachers won’t always be great. Last year, I was mostly really pleased with my teachers. This year… I guess I can’t say the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some excellent teachers and TAs this year, but I’ve had just about as many that struggled to teach some pretty important, difficult concepts, and sometimes I totally dreaded going to class. My goal for next year is to not have that happen. #DreamBig
Sometimes, it feels unimportant. With respect to the content of my classes, sometimes I just get tired of doing “stuff” that I don’t see having specifically practical applications in the real world. Almost all of those hours I spent doing econ and econometrics involved proving and using extremely simplistic models and trying to wrap my head around how to solve for 8 variables.
Grades don’t matter that much, but they usually work out. This is a post for next week, but I care specifically about my grades now much less than at any other point in my life. I still work hard, obviously, and I want to do well. I also recognize that grades are relative and I don’t have to get an A to learn a lot. That said, grades-wise, I’m doing just fine. This quarter even went a little better than I initially expected. No worries, life is good, blah blah blah, and I have a nice internship this summer that’s keeping me pretty busy.
Even when school sucks, it really doesn’t. And honestly, even when I’m frustrated with algebra or dense sociological texts, I’m endlessly grateful to have the opportunity to be at UChicago and learn all this challenging material. The school is intense, and it stretches me a lot, but even when I hate it… I don’t.
Even when school (or life) is tough, it can be really good. Share on XOn Socialization
It can be fun to meet new people. I like to connect with people, so the beginning of the year was really fun for me. Being an O-Aide gave me the chance to meet all the first years before there were classes and schoolwork to be busy with, and I loved it. I’m so glad to have the opportunity to do it again this year.
The strongest support systems persist over time and distance. I have friends and a study group and roommates at UChicago, but a lot of my closest support network is still the one I started college with (family + high school friends).
Sometimes, that really sucks. It feels like everyone has their people, and I just don’t. At least, not at school. But I am a person and a support for a whole bunch of people at UChicago. I listen a lot, and that’s what people need most often. I’m glad I can provide that, but when I’m at school I miss having the reciprocal relationship. That got to me a lot sometimes.
It’s extremely valuable to have a life outside of college. Blogging friends rock. Connecting with Susie somewhat regularly has been fabulous and helps me get out of my little college bubble. Studying at the Hyatt serves a similar purpose. I think having a life outside of college would be more natural if I went to school closer to home, since I already have some ties to the rest of the community, but I’m glad I’ve started to find that balance in Chicago.
On Living
Even a little apartment kitchen is so much better than no kitchen. I kind of like to cook, in case you missed that memo. Being able to head to the kitchen and make good food after a long day or bake when I had the time was incredible for my sanity. I’m glad to be headed back to that apartment next year.
Roommate issues are real, and you need to address them. I say you need to address them because we didn’t in my apartment and it caused a whole lot of tension by the end of the year. If the people you live with are consistently leaving everything a mess (or doing anything else that would generally be considered disrespectful), tell them because it will continue to make you miserable. They, however, will not know or care.
{It was like this for four days. And that’s about half of our dishes.}
And in case you were wondering, leaving Post-Its bearing passive-aggressive notes around the apartment in hopes that people will change their behavior does not work. We did it anyway, though.
I’m a stress-eater. This is a repeat from last year, but it got more intense this year. It’s not fun. Aaaand I’m working on it.
Being out of your comfort zone is good for you. In one way or another, I’m out of my comfort zone every day at UChicago. I’ve grown, gained independence, and learned a lot about myself and my priorities. It’s hard, and I’ve spent a decent amount of time over the last two years wishing school was easier and closer to home. But like I said earlier, I’m endlessly grateful for the opportunity to be at UChicago, and deciding to go there is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Why going out of my comfort zone is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Share on XSo, that was second year. I have a year and a quarter left, and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more in the next 18 months. Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey. 🙂
Your turn:
Tell me something (anything!) about college! I love your stories.
Linking up with Amanda for Thinking Out Loud.
College forces you to grow up, whether or not you were already a smart cookie. You have handled all of the stressers very well, and you should be proud of yourself!
Thank you! You’re great 😀
All truths! I may need to hit you up as my virtual tutor for statistics….I thought I was done with math but…no :'(
Eeeek I’m sorry 🙁 Let me know if you need anything!
When I was in college, I never really found my “people”, mostly relying on my HS friends and family as well. It’s tough to feel like in some way you just don’t click, but I did have a lot of friends and acquaintances at school that made it a good experience. And go you for finishing your core classes! That way, you won’t be like me and begging professors to let you into a full class your senior year 😉
I’m glad to know that people who don’t find their “people” in college turn out okay 🙂
Roommate issues ARE real! I wish I had a kitchen- downfalls of just living in a dorm! I learned it was very important to have me time- without that, I would always find myself more anxious.
I hope you find a good way to squeeze in some me time next school year! We’ve gotta do whatever we can to minimize anxiety 😛
I definitely remember struggling to care about classes/info that just didn’t seem important to me. I swear… they put that crap in there to teach us discipline and just test our commitment 😆
Hahaha well, at least we passed that test 😀
I love that you’ve connected with people both in and outside of college. I’m learning that something similar applies to blogging. It’s good to have blogging friends and friends outside of blogging, because I can get a bit tunnel visioned about blogging. And what you shared about grades? PUT ‘er there friend! So happy to see your perspective on grades, because it alleviates any stress that you could have over grades. The most important thing? That you are working hard, enjoying life, and living! :o) I actually never went to college, so I really enjoy reading into other’s experiences.
Hahaha I totally agree with blogging/non-blogging friends. Sure, I need a few people who will listen to me babble about the internet, but I also need people to remind me to focus on the real world. And I’m so, so glad to be in the mental place that I am with regard to grades; it really does make life so much better to not worry about it so much!
I really enjoyed your self analysis. You are so much more mature than I was after “second year”. Oh my! How you’ve grown. Love u❤️
Thanks, Grandma. Love you ❤️
Ah! a year and a quarter! I too was able to graduate early but in the end, didn’t. And I’m glad! It helped me utilize on campus services and other things I wasn’t able to do from distance. I ended up taking the time to take interesting classes and apply for jobs, network, take care of last minute items in college that I wasn’t able to in the “real world.” Plus, I worked my on-campus job and saved money
That’s smart! For me, it’ll end up saving way more money to just save the two quarters of tuition and living costs, but I’m really glad you had a good end-of-college experience 🙂
I think I could have written this exact post about my own uni experience! I was pushed well out of my comfort zone and sometimes I dealt with it well but other times it was almost unbearable. I think it also changed my perspective on learning as like you, I had little motivation for things that held no real-world purpose.
If it is any consolation however, my third (and final) year as an undergraduate was my best out of all of them. I didn’t stop working hard but instead of killing myself over topics I hated and would never use beyond my exams, for the first time ever I realized that it is OK just to do ‘enough’ to get through them and that the whole experience is much better when the majority of my energy was focused upon getting the most out of the subjects and activities I truly enjoyed.
Hope you have a lovely summer.
xx
I’m so glad your last year was your best! That gives me a little extra hope 🙂 And isn’t it amazing what happens when we realize that “enough” really IS enough? It totally helps us perfectionists enjoy life more!
Yes yes yes both to having a life outside of the community at your school and to not caring about grades as much. My school is just tiny (~2000 people) and in a small country town, too, and blogging friends were so helpful to me this year in keeping perspective. It’s hard to go a school where it feels like everyone around you participates in ten million clubs, is president of a sports team, and gets a 4.0 GPA–but it isn’t representative of most of the world at all. 🙂
I’m glad that we are both unlearning our perfectionist ways when it comes to grades. If you’re really learning something, whether you get an A or a B because you were sick for an exam or had a family even to go to or something, doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things!
Yay for learning to be okay with imperfection! Proud of you ❤️
It’s definitely amazing how much you learn every year of college, even when you think you have it somewhat together 😉 Junior year – at least for me – is when I started feeling “at home” in college so hopefully you’ll get to experience that too 🙂 Fun fact….um, I only have one semester left (ahhh!) and am terrified. But super excited too!
Well you’re the second person who said the third year of college was the best, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed 😀 And CONGRATS! That’s so exciting! Enjoy every minute, Casey 🙂
Okay I wasn’t gonna read this post because I’m writing one really similar and didn’t want to steal your ideas 😛 but I couldn’t resist because I love your posts.
I totally get that feeling of what you are doing being unimportant. My whole degree so far has been pretty irrelevant to my end goal…it’s just a stepping stone. A very hard, painful stepping stone.
Aw, I’m glad you enjoy them! You’re too sweet.
Hang in there and GOOD LUCK. You’re almost there. I can’t wait to read your reflection 🙂
I totally understand why you chose to do all of your classes back to back as I did the same thing when finishing high school! I just wanted it over and done with and luckily I had switched to distance education (which is kind of homeschooling but you’re enrolled in a school and they send all the work) and they sent all of my work in massive lots so I finished it months before I was “supposed” to so I could do other things! It was hard at the time but so worth it!
Ahhhhhhhh, that sink full of dirty dishes made me cringe. I don’t know how I’d deal with roommates… I struggle to live with my family who I actually love, haha! ;P
“Hard at the time but so worth it” is exactly what I was going for 😉
Hahaha yeah… I did a lot of washing other people’s dishes just so I could maintain my own sanity 😛
I love this post so much! I can definitely relate. In my second year I shared an apartment-style dorm with a bunch of people (mostly guys) and needless to say they were incredibly messy! I ended up having to pay a $40 fine at the end of the school year but hey, there’s something so weird about cleaning up someone else’s mess haha
Thanks, Aya! And yeah, if I get charged a fee I won’t be too happy. It’s their mess 😛
It’s good they allowed you to skip ahead in your class schedule. I did Econ at Uni and the way it was set up was basically micro first semester macro second semester for four years and you had to do them in exact order. And all your other classes had those ones as prerequisites so it was pretty rigid what classes you could take at each time. The nice thing about third and fourth year classes are that they tend to be smaller and you can pick based more on your actual interests rather than general topics.
I hope you get your living situation sorted out, that can add a lot of unnecessary stress otherwise. I lived in a big house second year which turned into the party house and it was always a mess since no one wanted to take responsibility for cleaning. I moved in with different people for third and forth year and it made a huge difference. Being able to relax and feel comfortable in your own home is a big relief. Hope you sort everything out 🙂
I got really lucky to realize I wanted to speed through the curriculum, and hopefully the few quarters are more enjoyable, like you said!
And I know allll about cleaning other people’s messes. No fun. I switched roommates for the coming year, so I hope that resolves the issues 🙂