Make friends, not just deadlines

Graphic created by Rory Moon

The constant pressure of hustle culture is not always easy to navigate as a college student. It’s easy to get caught up in assignments and the stress of work, but it’s important to take a step back and recognize that there’s much more to it than deadlines. Your time as a student shouldn’t feel like survival mode.

College isn’t just where you earn a degree, it’s where you learn to live with other people, make lifelong friends and have experiences that you’ll get in no other stage of your life. At graduation, if the only thing you’ve taken away from your time here is a piece of paper, you’ve missed the point.

If you’re not engaging with the people in your community, you’re missing out on the main benefit of attending a large university like NC State.

Even simple things like laughing in dining halls or bumping into a friend on campus are moments to treasure. When else are you going to be surrounded by so many people your age, all stumbling through the same whirlwind of experiences as you are?

Deadlines return time after time, but those people sitting next to you in class — the ones you don’t make time for when you’re racing the clock — aren’t always going to be there. And making the most of your socialization while it’s readily available is exactly what you need for your future, long after you’ve finished school.

The phrase, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” claims social connections are able to get you better job opportunities than your academic credentials. Even if you didn’t come into college knowing people in your intended field, people around you are involved with the research and jobs you want. A thousand well-networked LinkedIn connections pale in comparison to a recommendation from a peer or professor in the industry that you built a genuine relationship with.

Not that your academic achievements aren’t important, but as the job market evolves, a laundry list of accomplishments just doesn’t have the same value as it might have a decade ago. While your resume might be the most artfully crafted piece of literature since the Renaissance, AI is screening through it anyways.

Good friends will also help you cope when the job of your dreams doesn’t end up panning out the way you’d hoped. The people who actually know you are going to be supporting your future long after your academic advisors can.

While you invest into your experience as a student, it’s on educators to make sure classrooms support social connection. Classes without opportunities for conversations between students or with professors could be as effective online or pre-recorded — There is no reason to make students navigate North Carolina weather to watch documentaries in a physical classroom.

When a course allows discussions between students to happen on a daily basis, there’s a reason to participate in every class. Forcing group projects between people who have never spoken to each other isn’t the solution, but regularly posing critical thinking questions helps people learn and engage with each other and course content.

Students shouldn’t be holed up in dorm rooms 24/7, hunched over homework until their backs ache. Our campus offers so many organizations and events, there’s no shortage of opportunities to meet new people. You should be grabbing a coffee with a classmate, going to football games or trying something new.

Not that you shouldn’t take college seriously. Your grades, goals and future all matter. But you’re going to have a hard time achieving any of these without building a genuine relationship with the people around you.

College is one of the few opportunities in adult life when you get to take risks, make mistakes and figure out who you are without everything being on the line. It doesn’t matter what age you are when you’re attending, the NC State community is your reason to be here — make the most of it.

So buy the overpriced coffee. Talk to strangers. Cheer too loudly at the football game. Let yourself live a little because these years aren’t just about getting through them; they’re about making friends and enjoying every moment.

Article originally published on Technician's website, found here.