By Yihong (Nancy) Ni
If you will be heading to college in the near future, you probably have many questions and some concerns. The best advice I received about college is to maintain an open perspective. Be ready to change and be changed. Develop the flexibility to face disappointments and make rebounds. Having recently finished my first year in college, I hope the following observations will be helpful. Freshman year is one of privilege and experimentation. You will have the resources of time and space to try things and to make mistakes without being confronted by the pressures that many upperclassmen face. It is a year to take risks and to step beyond your comfort zone. At the end of freshman year, I was happy for the most part, somewhat regretful, and thoroughly exhausted.
Freshman year was a mixed load - and I'm not just talking about that enormous heap of laundry. It was great to gain independence, to decide what to do, when and where. I was my own boss. Whatever choices I made, I was responsible for all the consequences. Well, my choices led to much fun but also stress at times. In that whirlwind of tough academic workload and alluring extracurricular activities, I learned more about the economics of freedom and decision-making than ever before.
It is often an instinct for people to look around and observe what others are doing and to emulate each other. That instinct was further accelerated at college. I was greatly impressed by peers, their academic stamina, creativity, and dedication to numerous extracurricular projects. Taking four classes, designing pages for a magazine, and tutoring high school students online, I felt my hands were already full! How did some people have so much energy to do all of that and more? I learned that a healthy outlook is essential. Find your own pace and work with the resources available to you. Your resources will naturally be different from anyone else's, and the key is to work with what you have.
There are probably hundreds of legal things you will want to do once you enter college, but you won't be able to do everything you want. Your most precious resources - time, energy, and money - will be highly constrained. These resources can be allocated in many different ways - spending a certain number of hours studying moral philosophy, certain level of energy playing intramural soccer, certain amount of money watching movies - but obviously, some combinations will be better than others, depending on what you value as important. You will need to be smart about allocating these scarce resources.
I could have done a much better job of managing my time as a first-year student. Procrastination was the notorious contributor to a general decrease in productivity. The quality of college living depends primarily upon productivity - how well we make use of time, energy, and money. I found that chatting online took way too much time, time I would rather have spent studying for a test, talking with friends in-person, or catching up on much-needed sleep. Now when asked for my screen name, I instinctively cringe.
This brings me to a discussion of the concept of tradeoff. You will constantly face tradeoffs in college because time, energy, and money are so limited. Will you spend one more hour reading Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient or attending a magazine publication meeting or eating dinner? Yes, do be aware of the freshman fifteen - plus or minus some; it is sneaky and hits quite unexpectedly - but no need to knock out your sweet tooth, just ignore those brownies. With twenty-four hours in a day, of which only an average of six were allotted to sleeping, I found that conserving energy was highly important. Staying up all night working on a paper undoubtedly decreased my productivity the next day when I worked on a computer science problem set. Do the benefits of writing that paper exceed its opportunity costs - the cost of not working as efficiently on something else and the loss of sleep? Staying up and watching the sun rise is very nice, but staying awake in class is more important. The opportunity costs of procrastination are very high, so try to work consistently to meet short-run targets. It might seem counterintuitive, but it is worth it, especially approaching final exams. You will have more energy and time to rest up and prepare for exams if you have been working at a steady pace throughout the semester.
Similarly, there are tradeoffs in spending money. Will you decide to buy a textbook at full price from the school bookstore - ridiculously expensive but convenient - or will you buy it from a vendor on eBay - less pricey but potentially costly in terms of item quality and shipping time? Do you value spending one more dollar towards a benefit concert ticket or a cup of espresso? With all the new-found freedom you will have as a freshman college student, expect to encounter many tradeoffs when you reach for your wallet.
So here's a summary of my advice: first, identify your priorities and what you value most in your college experience. Then, allocate your time, energy, and money based on those value judgments. Keep in mind the short-term and long-term costs and benefits of both sides of a tradeoff. Finally, one of the most reliable long-term investments to make is in an open perspective. Good luck with preparing for college.
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