I recently finished up my 3rd year of college, and all I can say is, what an interesting year this has been (and it’s still going!).
As a student, you learn a lot of things at school, but in my opinion, the most valuable lessons you learn are the ones about life. This year in particular taught me a lot about myself, people, and our collective society. To sum it up, here are the 3 lessons I learned in these past 3 quarters (we go by quarter system and I hate it).
1. Setting (Mental) Boundaries
🍁 In my fall quarter, I moved into a new apartment with new friends. Two of my roommates I did not know well, so I made every effort I could to become their friend. All my life, I’ve always wanted people to like me, even if that meant bending over backwards for them, morphing my personality, or finding any little thing we might be able to bond over. I was always consumed with pleasing people and earning their affinity, at the cost of my time, energy, and mental health.
I learned that setting mental boundaries helps you maintain healthy emotional and mental state. Say “no” to things when you don’t have the mental energy. Spend time alone and practice self-care to refresh and revitalize your mind. And lastly, don’t take things personally.
2. Resilience
❄️ In my winter quarter, I had to take a programming class for my computational concentration. This class was probably the hardest class I’ve taken at UCI. It was an insane amount of workload: there were two quizzes every week, a test every week, and a project every two weeks. I could barely keep up with the work, on top of the fact that there was a spreadsheet that ranked every student in the class by their grades, and every week, there I was, ranked at virtually the bottom of the class. (UCI CS students — you’ll probably know what class this is, haha)
Halfway through the quarter, I hit rock bottom. I wanted to give up because I was so mentally exhausted and stressed. I accepted the fact that I would probably have to retake this course, which was practically a miracle for me to get into in the first place.
While I was on a walk, admiring the trees blowing in the wind, I had a realization: while I was most certainly not the smartest student, I could learn to be the most resilient. I imagined myself as a small thin tree, constantly being pushed by the wind, but always bouncing back up. If I were a large tree, one axe to my trunk, and it would take me years to grow back; I might not ever recover to what I was before. So I told myself, I am a resilient tree. I can be knocked down many times, but I will grow back stronger than before. I know that I will never be the smartest person in the room, and that’s okay. I will be the most resilient.
3. Consistency
🌼 In my spring quarter, COVID hit. None of us would have ever imagined that we would all be taking online classes. With most of the outdoor activities eliminated from our daily routines, I pretty much sat at my desk all day, with my single daily outing being my evening walk to remind myself of what fresh air felt like.
As the monotony of routine began to settle in, I feared that I would lose my motivation and productivity. I decided to take advantage of this time to practice consistency. I’ve always had the tendency to start something, work on it intensely for a short period of time, then abandon it once I lose passion. For once, I wanted to build habits and actually stick to them; I wanted to start a project and actually finish it. And this time, I’d have no excuse.
By the end of the quarter, I accomplished all of the goals I set for myself:
- I got all A’s in my classes for the first time, and made Dean’s Honors List.
- I worked out almost every day, and lost 5 pounds.
- I incorporated the habit of reading for at least 30 minutes a day, and exceeded my goal of finishing 3 books by this year.
- I wrote and published several articles on Medium.
- I finished my personal website (version 1).
- I landed physics research doing image classification for galaxy images from the Spitzer space telescope imaging data base.
- I started a drawing project that would force myself to push out 30 drawings.
The power of consistency is highly under-appreciated and does not get the credit it deserves. It is the boring dirty work that keeps the wheels turning. It is the uncomfortable feeling of “I know I should do it, but nothing will happen if I don’t”. It’s the extra bit of effort every day that adds up over a long period of time. It’s the power of consistency that brings success.
That’s it— those are the 3 lessons I learned in my 3rd year of college. I’m looking forward to see what my 4th year entails, and what lessons I’ll pick up along the way. Until then, set boundaries, be resilient, and practice consistency!
