After moving into my dorm this year, I opened one of my drawers to find a note from my mom that ended with “Enjoy your college years, they are the best.” I pinned this note to my bulletin board, and every now and then, I think about it. There seems to be pretty general consensus that the years we spend in college will be the best years of our lives. A survey conducted by Leeds Beckett University found that 65 percent of adults at least 10 years post-graduation rate their college years the best years of their lives. It’s not hard to understand why this is true — college is the first time many people get freedom and independence from home, allowing them to discover who they are and develop an identity separate from their family. In college, you also get to meet new people from different backgrounds with different beliefs than you and, for many, develop lasting relationships. College is also a time when you learn the most and are exposed to new, exciting ideas.
However, going into college with the idea that these are supposed to be the best years of your life makes expectations too high and leaves many people disappointed or worried when things are hard. College is not really what I expected, and I’ve often wondered if it’s something to do with me, not college itself. The fantasy of what college is supposed to be like rarely comes to fruition and, for many, admitting that feels wrong. This makes people reluctant to drop out or change the course they are on for something different because they have false hope that things will get better and don’t want to waste the time or money they spent on college. This sunken cost fallacy especially impacts low-income students. These students often face the dual pressures of having to work on top of school and make financial decisions that will impact themselves and their families. These students can’t take the same time to make mistakes and figure things out the way others can and they feel isolated when they don’t have the same experiences as other students. It’s difficult to work a part-time job and have the carefree, fun college experience we all expect or make the same mistakes other students can with little consequence. The perfect college experience is a fairly privileged one that not many actually get to have.
Often, the ideal social life in college is portrayed in pop culture and even by older adults as one filled with free time, friends and parties. It is a great privilege to be able to pay for a college education, and especially to treat the education itself as a secondary priority to having a social life that you can look back on in the future as defining the “best years of your life.” Low-income students miss out on this “normal” college experience because they may not have the luxury of free time if they have to work to afford going to college. Even if students can afford to go college, many still prioritize doing well in school over social life in hopes of future economic mobility. Holding onto the idea that college is meant to be the best years of your life pressures students to prioritize attaining the media’s idea of a perfect college experience rather than a college experience that will create better futures.
Even if you enjoy your college years, believing that these are supposed to be the best years of your life takes away from fully enjoying your future. The idea of having to get a job and become a real-life grown-up sounds awful, but there is so much more that life has to offer outside of these four years, and you shouldn’t look to your future with the idea that it can never beat your college years. And if you don’t enjoy your college years, your life isn’t doomed to be miserable either — there is plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with your life and college doesn’t have to be the only place this happens. We should all try to enjoy our college years the best we can, but your entire life should not be defined by four years. College is certainly a fulfilling experience, but it is damaging to expect the picture-perfect college fantasy to come true for everyone.
Antonia Kladias is a freshman majoring in biochemistry.