College Compartmentalizing

You just graduated from high school in the spring. You spent the last 3 months of your summer break making the most productive use of your time. You volunteered, learned some new skills, made a few friends, went on hikes. Time just flew by and you have a week left before you transition into this new equal parts daunting and exhilarating phase of your life. This is where you’d either make it or break it.

You start the first day of your school with your bag slung over your shoulders, head high, striding into your dorm building with your dad helping you move the boxes. You are buzzing with ecstasy. Once you are all unpacked, you say a final goodbye to your dad, and take a quick nap on your dorm bunk bed. The indistinctive noises wafting from the floor lounge disturb your sleep and a wave of perturbation smacks you in your face. You muster the courage to walk out there and introduce yourself. You feel very overwhelmed by all these extroverted neighbors.

A few weeks go by. Your on-campus job is going alright but all of your coworkers are 10 -20 years older than you. You find it hard to connect with them. You are still struggling to piece together what’s being taught in your classes. The classes are huge and there’s not much interaction so you start feeling lonely. It’s Thanksgiving and you still have not made friends. While other kids savor a potluck Thanksgiving dinner with an enormous Turkey placed on the center of the table, you just lay down on your bed in your sweatpants, your beard scruffy and your hair disheveled, beating yourself up. A few more days go by. You run into this gorgeous blonde girl from one of your classes but you have no idea what to say. You stay there still, your stationary gaze drilling into her creeped-out face. Instead of walking up to her and saying hi, you just bolt from there.

We have all been through that stage in our lives where we feel utterly lost, perplexed, and disoriented and have no clue about how to make our lives more thrilling and productive. Our desire to stay holed up and not put ourselves out there stems directly from the lack of confidence. We put too much pressure on ourselves and allow ourselves to be bothered by what others think of us. Sometimes we might even act too vulnerable and drive away the ones we have just started talking to. The fear and the trepidation impede us from breaking the bubble.

Now how to remedy this? Listen. It’s always going to be very scary out there. I mean I still feel inhibited when I am thrown into a situation with a bunch of strangers who are friends with each other and I feel like the outsider, maybe sometimes even frozen out. But it’s still a crazy lot better than how I used to feel 2 years ago. A good starting point is to draft out a plan of action. List all the things you have been wanting to do but are lacking the motivation or fortitude to do. If you seem to be lacking a routine, it’s time to bring the discipline back into your life. Fix a time to wake up in the mornings, regardless of when your first class is.

Earmark 2 hours each day for focusing on your inner self. Make sure that you spend at least a few hours every week just bonding with people. Join clubs on your campus. Just push yourself to take the plunge every time you find yourself being on the fence about something. Learn to be an opportunist, in a good way. Instead of being too much in your own head about something and pondering the outcome, think of it as a way of learning. Don’t be afraid of making a fool out of yourself. People have a short memory. Even if you end up committing a gaffe, your mindset should be “ hey who cares, at least I learned from this experience and I hope that this will help me grow as a person.”

As you socialize, ensure that you are not on edge about taking the initiative. If you are enjoying talking to someone, don’t be so terrified of grabbing their number and inviting them to hang out with you. Once you get into the habit of not being wound up about talking to people, making friends would be a joke. Effective communication is key here. Friendship takes its own time. You can’t badger it out of someone. Always step up and be bold but don’t smother someone with perpetual texts. Learn to give space and communicate appropriately.

Okay, so with the socializing aspect straightened out, next on the list is academics and career. You want to divide your time competently between career and academics. You want to snag an internship for the next summer, but you also don’t want to fall behind in your classes. Maintaining a 3.9 or 4 GPA isn’t as crucial as getting the hang of the concepts being taught and ensuring that you have a tenacious clutch on the fundamentals. The idea is to perform your best. Good grades will follow. They might not be all As or all A-s. But as long as the cumulative GPA is not a horrible 2.5 or something, the stress should remain 100 light-years away from you. Speaking of career, don’t let a few rejections deter you from applying continuously unless you get the job you desire. Mass applying is just one approach. Cold emailing recruiters is another strategy from the playbook. Look them up on LinkedIn, invite them to connect with you, grab their work email from the about section and shoot them a polite email with your resume attached.

Learning how to manage finances is an invaluable skill anyone can garner. Have goals in mind. Is there a new MacBook you are eyeing? Or are you looking to spend an opulent week in Paris? In order to get there, you need to form a budget. How much should you spend on take-outs and groceries every month? Should you cut back on unnecessary costs such as monthly entertainment subscriptions? How much should you invest in stocks?

Let’s answer all of these questions one by one. First, food is a necessity. Spend money on groceries prudently but not unthriftily. To answer the second question, yes. It’s okay to have a couple of subscriptions but they should not be setting you back a whole chunk of your monthly income. Cancel all the subscriptions that you are not actively using. Put the money you save there to better use. Invest at least 30% of your income in stocks and ETFs. Diversify your portfolio as much as you can. Put some money in different individual stocks in various sectors. Explore crypto. Invest in a myriad of ETFs. A word of caution tho. The world of financial markets involves extensive research and no actions should be taken haphazardly.

Compartmentalizing the 24 hours we get every day goes a long way. Not only does it help us feel reinvigorated, but it also makes our lives more productive. It’s easy to feel frazzled and overwhelmed when you first start college but don’t let the consternation go unfettered to an extent that it essentially stonewalls you from accomplishing your goals. Let the confidence within you bubble up, and get to grips with all the challenges life throws at you head-on!