Throughout my tenure at Tufts, I’ve learned that there are three constants of college: work, tiredness and sickness. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t been at least one of those constants. Even as I write this article, I am stressed from midterms, tired from the Tufts gardeners who have decided that 7 a.m. on a Monday morning is the best time to mow the lawn and sick from my third iteration of the freshman plague.
Nonetheless, no matter how sick or tired I — or anyone at Tufts — may be, the continual stream of work never ends until the semester does. And, of course, this persistent stream of work also inherently disregards our genetic desire to dilly-dally. In turn, it forces us to lock in. Tufts, and schools in general, deny us of our innate trait of monkeying about and pressurizes us to get in line.
The dichotomy of work-life between high school and college is quite drastic. In high school, I could, relatively easily, get up at 7 a.m. and get to school in time for my first class at 8:10 a.m. Each day, I would sit through about 7 consecutive classes, go to sports practice, return home, do homework and be in bed before midnight, ready to do it all again.
College is quite different. It takes a miracle to get up at 9:30 a.m. for a 10:30 a.m. class. Every morning, my twin-size Hodgdon hall bed turns into the softest and warmest bed known to mankind. If I am able to get up, it takes another miracle to go to class. It seems most people only go to about two-thirds of their lectures. And no matter what, I’ll always end up going to bed around 1:30 a.m. because of either my intrinsic trait of dilly-dallying or my floormates wanting to have a two-hour, in-depth conversation about the philosophical nature of societal trends.
The workload in college is also drastically heavier. The amount of hours I’ve accumulated at Tisch Library, the Joyce Cummings Center and Edwin Ginn Library — yes, I know I’m not supposed to go there — have already surpassed my hours at my high school’s library. Whether it’s staring at lines of code, learning new Spanish grammar rules or reading up on the latest economic theory, work is never nonexistent. And that seems like it’s true for every student here at Tufts. For example, I once saw an engineer in their Apple enclosure solving a 20-part physics problem sitting next to a drawing major furiously scribbling away at the next Mona Lisa when I was leaving the Tisch reading room after the apocalyptic 15-minute to closing announcement.
School is hard. Work and studying suck. And it’s a main part of college; some may argue that it’s the purpose of college. However, one of my good friends once said, “College is just one big party with classes as obstacles.” While that quote isn’t really true, if you squint your eyes and don’t really think about it, the quote encapsulates the college experience.
I love college and hate it at the same time. I love my time hanging out with friends and going on adventures, and I hate my long nights in the Tisch reading room struggling with a seg-fault — if you know, you know. Unfortunately, though, those two are intertwined. There is no fun without struggle. Time at parties and time in the library are inherently entwined and go hand-in-hand. And when all is said and done, I know I’ll miss both of them.
A whole and successful college experience is not only measured by the laughs you had, the friends you made or the parties you went to but also the tears you shed, the hours in the library you clocked and the work you had to complete.
I love how I am talking about this as if I’m a senior. I’m only a mere first-year. Midterms change a man. They have made me more introspective. All that time in Tisch makes me feel like I’m a Bene Gesserit from Dune. But I’m pretty confident I’m right. If I know anything about growth, it’s that every experience is just another page in a long novel.
Anyway, enough dilly-dallying. Time to lock in for these midterms! (I’m cooked)
