Hey everyone! So it has been a while since my last post. I feel like this is a great day to speak about communication with college students.
College is nowhere near high school. Friends change, class sizes change, the environment changes, even our most basic habits and hobbies even change!
Yesterday I was informed by a former interested party that I, “fail to communicate”. For the sake of this post, I would like to say that there are two different cultures of people in the world: college students (past and present) and those who are not college students (past and present). For those of us college students (past and present) it is easy for us to see that we have extremely limited time to spend with others (family, friends, significant others/dates). We are consumed with loads of homework (absurdly larger) than the amount we were accustomed to in high school. We have meetings with professors, various offices (as part of course requirements), meetings with our advisors (that aren’t always the most convenient to our schedules), tutoring sessions (for those subjects we struggle in *cough, cough MATH!*, group projects (that professors don’t allow in class time to be set aside for), student leadership experiences (meetings, organizations, campus ambassador, provide tours, freshmen orientations…) and even volunteering (both assigned for courses, and to help us gain critical experience that we need to make ourselves even more marketable in the real world.
I think it is safe to say that is a pretty exhausting list! Speaking for myself, I am usually pretty drained by the time I get home…oh wait…can’t forget those friends/faculty/staff who ask you to do something last minute…and you don’t know how to say no…so the day hasn’t stopped yet. Ok, now I am at home…drained and so tired that I can’t even work up energy to make dinner, or walk the short flight of stairs to my bedroom, so I pass out on the couch.
While this might sound like a rant, it’s more of trying to provide a different lens for family, friends, and loved ones…of mine, and others…to take into consideration if you don’t get an immediate response, if you don’t hear from them in a few days…or hell, even a week sometimes, if they forget to show up to an event/date…
Non-college students (past and present) are held to similar time-constraints, I don’t deny that! What I am hoping you gain from this is that you take some extra time to allow the person to respond, to maybe remind them 3-4 times more than usual. Our lives are stressful, and we want to spend time with others outside of our academic setting. Sometimes exhaustion ruins this for us. Sometimes we simply forget with all that we are dealing with.
…and remember, Go Bucks!
P.S. After writing a post about being exhausted, I’m exhausted!