Starting college can be a daunting and difficult event in your life. High school is finally over, all of your friends have departed to their respective colleges, you've quit that dreadful summer job, and you're about to start your own post-secondary-education journey.
Now that you're free of the grasps of curfews and rules set by your parents, you may want to work out a plan for dealing with your new environment and responsibilities. In my experience as a junior in college, I've found that there are two sides to that preparation: physical and mental. The physical ways to be responsible in a college setting can be pretty simple. On the other hand, the mental side of that coin is much more ambiguous.
Physical preparation is typically straightforward--it's the kind of stuff we can Google with ease if we are clueless. You must find ways to stay organized, plan a bus schedule for work and school, make sure you have all of your class syllabi printed out. It can be as simple as making sure you have an alarm set early in the morning so that you have enough time for breakfast before class.
Like I said before, mental preparation is much more ambiguous. Different things work for different people. Here's a concept that may interest you. It's been effective in my life and has helped me stay on track. Most importantly, it has helped me remain happy in a time that is otherwise saturated with stress. This is the philosophy of Stoicism.
What is Stoicism?
You may know of the term "stoic". The Merriam-Webster definition for the word stoic is "one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain." In many ways, that definition is not much different from what it means to practice stoicism. The philosophy of Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium around 300 B.C. in Athens, Greece. It follows core ideas that center around reacting to our environment with controlled emotions.
As the world around us remains unpredictable and changing, we have to face every day's surprises with self-control. This involves suppressing one's emotions whether or not things go your way.
Beyond the basic principles, Stoicism involves some pretty high-level information. If you would like to learn more about Stoicism in today's context, visit this site. If you'd like to get a deeper and more technical explanation of Stoicism, see this page.
How does it apply to college?
In many ways, Stoicism is very complicated. There is an entire structure and logic to this philosophy. To completely follow Stoicism would take a lot of knowledge and dedication. In a collegiate context, you may not be able or want to dedicate your energy to this. I find that Stoicism is best applied to college in small doses.
As we begin our journey in this post-secondary world, we face change every single day. Not many of those changes are expected, so it's good to stay in control of your emotions when these sudden changes do arise.
By doing so, Stoicism can benefit your life. If you fail an exam, instead of freaking out about how it'll affect your GPA, stay calm and set up an appointment with a teacher's assistant for help.
If you flop a job interview, clear your head of what you did wrong and set up an appointment with your college's career services office and see if there are any advisers who can help with strategies. If you are unhappy with your major three years into school, instead of feeling regret and putting up with a field you're not interested in, find out what you are passionate about.
Try and integrate what you already know into what you are interested in. From there, you can choose or create your own new path.
Stoicism is about redirecting extreme emotions that may damage us in some way later, and doing something productive instead. This doesn't just go for negative emotions, though.
This philosophy also applies when we are doing well, too. Sometimes our successes and achievements can lead to deconstructive attributes like overconfidence, arrogance or lack of empathy. It's important to keep our pride and happiness in check too so that we can remain humble when other tasks are at stake.
To conclude...
How we carry ourselves in college is crucial to how we prepare for the adult world. The strategies you can learn from Stoicism can help you remain tactful as you begin your classes and even well beyond that.
By all means, don't ignore your emotions. But at the same time, don't let them control you. We should always feel how we need to feel when changes occur. But it's the way we respond that defines who we are.
