It shouldn’t be a surprise to you that students in the 21st century are often overwhelmed with homework. If it is, then you probably haven’t been a student in a long time and have no children.
There has been the debate over the benefits of homework. Is it or isn’t it a benefit? It doesn’t seem like anyone comes to a consensus.
I know that I cannot be the only one out there who has felt like I’m just one tiny person in a sea of homework, papers, essays and moodle posts. Sometimes I just don’t see the tornado coming, and by the time it’s passed the horizon, it’s already hit me.
In high school, you’re studying and doing homework to graduate. That’s basically your only motive. In college, you have to remember everything for the rest of your life because this is your career.
This brings me to "Glee." Even though a lot of people don’t like it for the drama, and maybe even for the singing, that show did get something right: the arts are not a priority.
Everyone knows that the American collegiate system is far from perfect, but on one talks about how it needlessly crushes our creativity. Believe me, I’m not saying this lightly. I did my research, and I looked at all kinds of creativity and found the same thing.
I spoke to six different people, Scotty Martin, the writer, Caleb Bigler, the singer, Linn Sarmiento, the graphic designer, Julienne Shih the artist, David Agtarap the musician, and Jamie Perez, the crafter and dancer. When asked if they felt like college got in the way of their creativity, every single one of them said the same word: Yes.
There were various different sides of the spectrum represented in these six types of creative people.
Scotty wrote about how he let the creativity win, and he dropped out of college. After dropping out, he found it easier to complete his novels and now has his second one self-published on Amazon. He is now back in school.
Julienne felt an immediate change, “When I started college, I have had a few periods of time where it has been a struggle to find satisfaction in something as simple as doodling or sketching. Something was off. My proportions were wrong.”
Everyone had different reasons for why they stopped doing their art, but Jamie seemed to sum it up perfectly in her response, “I feel that if I didn't spend so much time studying, doing homework or getting involved in things that helped me build my resume, I could spend more time exercising my mind in a different, healthy way.”
There is a very clear and obvious problem in American colleges. There is this innate pressure put on us to try and constantly do everything possible to advance ourselves for our careers. The first thing you hear from someone you meet, whether they're a student or a professor, they ask you what your major is.
Would our lives be different if people instead asked us what our passion is? Because, sadly, those two are not interchangeable most of the time.
This brings me to Caleb, who seems to fall into the middle of our spectrum. He is a sophomore at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, which makes his situation a bit different. He goes to a school that is meant to foster his creativity and chosen art.
Instead of a simple yes, he answered with both a yes and a no. “I'm at an arts (music) school and essentially all of my time besides sleeping and eating goes to practicing my craft in one way or another. I will say, however, that it has not been so much concentrated on the traditional "practice" that I've done my whole life, meaning I've been focusing on many other areas in music aside from simply singing. That is where I would say yes, it has been harder to find time to practice. I'm so busy that I often don't prioritize the simple act of just going into a practice room and singing for the fun of it.”
His quote brings me to something my mom used to tell me when I was younger. She told me that she loved to cook as a child. She wanted to become a chef, so she went to culinary school. Slowly but surely, this thing that she loved so much soon turned into something she hated. She had to cook for herself, cook at work, and cook for others.
It lost all of the fun that she had for it.
College is supposed to show us what it means to pursue a career we will always have fun doing. It’s supposed to foster the creative and the analytical side of all of us. It’s not supposed to put up a wall in our heads that breaks us from seeing the joy in the things that made us passionate to begin with.
Here’s the good news.
It doesn’t last forever, and there are ways to get through it.
Caleb said, “When you call yourself an artist, that title comes with an expected dedication to your craft, and that means taking the time and making the sacrifices to really apply yourself.”Perez said, "I would say that whatever you do in college, always make time to do the things you love. If you are working hard during the week and only live for the 48 hours on the weekend, you will be miserable for the other 120 hours of the week."
College is not going to be the best four years of your life. That's another lie you've probably been told. Even if you're not studying the arts and you think you have it made, the rest of your life is still coming, and it's just around the corner.
Being creative in college is hard, and there are no doubts about the fact that sometimes you just have to sit down and force yourself to do what you want to do even when it's not necessarily going to further your career.
Because here's the thing: If you're not doing what makes you happy, you won't be happy, and what's the point of making yourself miserable?
As Julienne puts it, it's just a spell that you fall into. There's always a way out, "Don't worry about how long it would take because there isn't a definite period when it would be 'cured.' It'll come back to you. It always does."
Linn has more of a practical approach to overcoming this obstacle, "I can't entirely say I got past this hurdle but what really helped me was engaging in activities that force me to do creative things for myself. For example, I engage in drawing challenges such as Jake Parker's Inktober on Instagram. I also do artist tabling in conventions where I can display and possibly, make money off of my work. Through committing myself to things like this, I force myself to work my personal projects into my schedule."
David, like Linn, had more of a planning approach, "There is always an opportunity cost when it comes to focusing your time and energy to certain things you love. There is also great sacrifice. (...) Prioritizing and removing distractions is key, coupled with a routine disciplined way of life."
And me? I used to do photography. I used to actually go out and try to take pictures of things that I thought were beautiful. My favorite was portraits and people, using studio light and capturing an essence of them.
I haven't done any photography since starting college.
But, I did find myself writing, more so than I did in high school. And I did have to force myself to sit down and just write.
Really, it comes down to this: if you identify as an artist, if what you love doing is working with your mind and creating something tangible and physical, then you have to find time for it.
There is no magic fix because college won't change over time, the only thing we can do is to adapt and fight for a change to come at some point.
College needs to place more emphasis on creativity because it is so crucial and so important to emphasize the things that make us unique and make us fun and interesting people.
How horrible would the world be if it weren't for all of the great music, the books, the artwork? Our world would be a mixture of grays, whites, and black. We wouldn't have the color that makes humanity great.
It's time for colleges and professors and teachers everywhere to start realizing that their class isn't the only one, and it is possible for students to be overworked.
One thing I have heard a million times in my college career, and even before, is that when I get out into the real world, I'll understand. And it wasn't until my second year that someone finally said, "What are those people talking about, this is the real world."
You might not realize it, but right now, in college, this is the best time to be creative and to force yourself to make something out of your passion.
As New York Times Bestselling author Tommy Wallach puts it, “Whatever you may think, you will never again have more free time than you do in college. Use it."
