What I’ve loved most about my experience at University is the opportunity to try several new activities and in turn, gain new interests. If your approach to university life is anything like mine, you will be sure to be in situations where multiple priorities overlap and you are left to choose what to miss and what not to miss.
At the beginning of the year, I started of signing up for several societies. However as the year progressed and academic commitments started to weigh upon me, it became more difficult to keep up with all of my interests. I had joined the Guitar Society (GuitSoc) and the Boxing Club (SUABC). Apart from this, I also started playing football regularly on the weekends with the Flat 11-a-side. These commitments, coupled with coursework and the desire to travel and also land a summer internship began to make my life feel like an eight month session of juggling heavy objects while mounted on a unicycle. The problem was that I had put equal importance to all of my interests. I also had the fear of missing out and said ‘Yes’ to next to every event or activity that I was presented with. Now, you might think that this post is now migrating towards the topic of developing the skill to prioritize. But. No.
Setting aside the occasional Why is this happening to me or What have I done moments, I absolutely enjoyed having my plate full. It was a great experience getting to know the extents of my abilities in terms of getting as many things done in a week. To the coming 3rd years I’d say: Go for it. Be busy. Bite of more than you can chew. I think that this is the time for finding out the extents of your interests, the parts of life that you value most, what makes you work and what doesn’t. What’s beautiful about putting yourself out there and being in the midst of a never ending to-do list is that you will inevitably develop a skill for the prioritization of your important work and being organised at it. Aaron’s written a really good piece on how some activities in University can build attitude and character.
The best aspect of going through this – in my opinion – is that in the end it makes the education experience more worthwhile. Some of us have come really far to go to University and I think it’s in this way that we can do justice to the money and effort gone into it.