Student Blog: Summers Come and Summers Go

After my first year of college, this summer has been reflective and has made me look back at my year and consider my emotions as well as my wants and needs. Getting out of college I felt so relieved to be back at home, to have some sense of familiarity back in my life after facing change after change for the past nine months. 

This summer I spent a lot of time working. My primary job this summer was at the kids' summer camp that my old high school hosts and there I worked alongside four of my classmates from high school. We were playing games, lining up kids, and writing out field trip packing lists on the same whiteboards we used to copy school notes from. But I had fun. In comparison to my life at college, I found that I felt happy, free, and satisfied. In college, I had been so wrapped up in my academics, nailing an internship, and keeping up with extracurriculars that I completely forgot about the living part of life.

Summer is such an odd time in life, it feels like everything slows down and reverts to the past. School is out and kids return home. Annual family vacations occur and summer nights keep no clock. Familiar faces are acquainted and catching up pursuits. It reminds us of a time when living and interacting for pure enjoyment was our only priority. A priority that is easily lost in the rat race of college academia. During the school year, I felt such a need to get things done, to be perfect, to constantly consume facts and opinions, and build an ever-shifting resume. I told myself, I am going to be different. I am here for college and that is what I am here to pursue. I hyper-fixated on the work and forgot about the experience.

Catching up with my high school colleagues, I found that, like me, the first year of college stood as a reminder of how our entire life was ahead of us and of how lost this reminder made us feel. We’re all just trying to make it through to the degree– to pass that math class, figure out a major that suits us, and find a future to work towards. What are we paying, studying, and losing sleep for? 

Only about a year ago I was a high schooler who dreamed of independence, collegiate studies, and campus life. But I found that I was unhappy. I’d lock myself in my room worrying I wasn’t doing enough, studying enough, or consuming enough knowledge to be the one that recruiters will choose. I had the books, but not the experience. I wouldn’t go out on weekends, I wouldn’t ‘splurge’ on an outing with friends. I kept myself shackled to my desk, my books, and my ambition. 

This summer has made me consider myself, my feelings, and my true wants for my future. What do I want from these next three years? What do I want on that final piece of paper? 

Success lives on paper and happiness lives in the heart. I think that finding both will be much harder than getting a Ph.D.