College Crunch

When in University, especially if you don’t choose one close to home, it can feel like you are all alone, and so early on everyone that feels as you do will try to create quick connections and cling to each other.

There will be two groups of people though, with one searching for study partners, and people that are smart, hard working and dedicated to doing well in the course, and the other will be looking for people that are funny, interesting and good to unwind with.

Each type of person has its benefits and of course having a mix of both would be ideal, but sometimes having friends of one type limits your ability to have friends of the other.

A good friend of mine had a friend named Sheryl, that was all about studying hard, obsessively so, and because of this single trait, it made my friend unable to connect with other people. The opinion was that since Sheryl was so obsessive, she wouldn’t be any fun and thus by proxy, my friend was considered “no fun”.

On the flip side, it can be hard to make friends that study hard when there are so many people surrounding you that are just interested in “having fun”.

If you can create a balance and have both types of friends or people that are able to fit into both molds, you will be able to have others to study with and people to unwind with. Your studying friends will allow you to bounce ideas off of them, which has been said to improve marks and the retention of information as well as having the other effect of usually dedicating more time for studying than those that try to study alone. Your party friends will allow you to unwind, and lower your stress, which will also allow you to increase your retention of the things said in class, and the studying that you do actively participate in.

I was never able to balance the two groups, and ended up with many more friends to study with than party with and in doing so, I always felt like I had missed out in a part of the College experience. If you can’t balance the two different pools of people, and you are good at studying on your own, I suggest you surround yourself with people that make you laugh. If you are great at entertaining yourself, and need that extra push in studying, find those that will help you in the ways that you need.

Either way, try to find time to get to know those in your course and school as they will make the time pass much more quickly than doing it alone.