I used to be a university hater big time. The pathetic part was that I was blaming the university, not me for not having provided the fun university experiences. However, after having realized one simple trick, I got to at least enjoy my university life with so much less stress. And it's so simple!
The trick: Stop doing the things that people tell you to do.
Do it only if YOU want to do it. Decide for yourself whether you like doing it or want to do it, for yourself, by yourself. Don't let others decide whether you should do this or not, despite of your individual preference if you are ready to be responsible with your actions.
For me, growing up in a fairly typical Asian family, I just followed what my mom told me to do obediently. I naively thought she would take care of everything and neglected thinking for myself. In fact, it was more convenient since you didn't have to be responsible with your decisions. However, when I came to university, which she had previously promised would secure everything, or anything I needed, I found out, in fact, it was a whole lot of different story. I was all on my own. It was new, and it felt scary.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I really thank my mom, for having given me such instructions. University is important (at least to me) and I am glad I made it this far. But what I should have done earlier was also to live for my own happiness and joy. Mine had been pretty much delayed (unless it came incidentally) until I was in university. And I realized now it was not my mom who was ordering me to do this and that, but myself who had gotten so used to putting stress on my own shoulder.
And now that I'm making decisions solely for myself, my world became colorful.
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It's not like all of a sudden, I don't feel overwhelmed by the workload and play all day long. I still do feel like there are lots of things to do and I do my work on time. However, now those things comprise only a small part of my life and I fill up the rest with the things I like doing, be it just hanging out, visiting museums/parks, or even doing nothing!
Last semester was the first time I actually put this into practice. My bf who was observing me all the while, was telling me how cunning I was (jokingly) to just cram before the test, and so on. But whatever it was, I had such a wonderful semester, really enjoying my life and my youth, feeling my own limits and capabilities. Surprisingly, although I was so happy and stress-free, the results were not so bad, compared to the times when I was so stressed out to the point where I just wanted to leave the school and live a life of a waitress in a remote island or something like that.
Maybe the point was that, I only learned what I wanted to learn. When there were interesting things from the course, I would be absorbed, discussing this issue and just having fun learning fascinating things. And that felt much more worthwhile than stressing myself and having wasted another potentially pleasant semester learning things that I will quite certainly forget after exams. (yes, that was the way I was 'learning'!)
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Anyways, having fun at university won't result in such horrible situation as long as you were responsible enough. All I'm saying is, there is no point unnecessarily stressing yourself.
Hope this posting helped anyone who is currently going through what I was going through a year ago.
Happy semester everyone :)
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