Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if one didn’t feel rushed during their time as a student. Some decades ago you could spend ten years of your life as a student, having all the time you wished for to participate in multiple activities besides studying. That must have been a wonderful period. Most students nowadays still do sports and exercises, but it doesn’t feel like there is enough time to broaden your horizons, especially on a creative level. Spending hours and hours on drawing, painting, dancing or singing, just because you like it – not because you want to make a living out of it. That is something I rarely see someone doing in my generation.
People are getting increasingly higher educated in the last few decades, which of course is a good thing for the country as a whole, but it also means more competition in the labour market. This is something that puts a lot of pressure on students. However, the situation became worse in 2014, when the government decided that students wouldn’t receive a ‘free’ scholarship anymore. Since then the scholarship has been replaced by a student loan, every penny received has to be returned. You can take it really slow returning that money, it can take up to thirty years if you can’t find a decent job after graduating. However, times have certainly changed.
I also believe that our smartphone-use plays a major role in the rush we experience. Not only are we constantly reminded of our online social life, every moment of the day, but we could also expect a Canvas notification or message in the chat of your project group on WhatsApp; that there’s a deadline coming up, or that the teacher uploaded feedback, or that grades have been published. We might only spend four or five hours per day at our faculty, but we’re constantly reminded that we’re students, almost 24/7. It seems like there isn’t enough time left to be something other than a student, such as a musician, a dreamer, or even yourself.
Although universities are always willing to adapt to these problems, it’s very difficult for the university to help students in this particular aspect, and it’s probably even harder for us students to break this trend ourselves and take charge of our own lives. What if you just shut down all your devices and take a moment for yourself, wouldn’t that feel liberating? It would certainly give you more space to do what you actually want to do. It often feels like we have more things we would like to do than we have time for. Unfortunately, shutting down your devices probably won’t work so well, because we need those devices for our appointments for the next day, to work on a project with our peers, or to answer an important phone call. However, it might still be important to remind yourself of the quest-ion: what things do I really want to do, before time has passed and opportunities have flown by?
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if one didn’t feel rushed during their time as a student. Some decades ago you could spend ten years of your life as a student, having all the time you wished for to participate in multiple activities besides studying. That must have been a wonderful period. Most students nowadays still do sports and exercises, but it doesn’t feel like there is enough time to broaden your horizons, especially on a creative level. Spending hours and hours on drawing, painting, dancing or singing, just because you like it – not because you want to make a living out of it. That is something I rarely see someone doing in my generation.
People are getting increasingly higher educated in the last few decades, which of course is a good thing for the country as a whole, but it also means more competition in the labour market. This is something that puts a lot of pressure on students. However, the situation became worse in 2014, when the government decided that students wouldn’t receive a ‘free’ scholarship anymore. Since then the scholarship has been replaced by a student loan, every penny received has to be returned. You can take it really slow returning that money, it can take up to thirty years if you can’t find a decent job after graduating. However, times have certainly changed.
I also believe that our smartphone-use plays a major role in the rush we experience. Not only are we constantly reminded of our online social life, every moment of the day, but we could also expect a Canvas notification or message in the chat of your project group on WhatsApp; that there’s a deadline coming up, or that the teacher uploaded feedback, or that grades have been published. We might only spend four or five hours per day at our faculty, but we’re constantly reminded that we’re students, almost 24/7. It seems like there isn’t enough time left to be something other than a student, such as a musician, a dreamer, or even yourself.
Although universities are always willing to adapt to these problems, it’s very difficult for the university to help students in this particular aspect, and it’s probably even harder for us students to break this trend ourselves and take charge of our own lives. What if you just shut down all your devices and take a moment for yourself, wouldn’t that feel liberating? It would certainly give you more space to do what you actually want to do. It often feels like we have more things we would like to do than we have time for. Unfortunately, shutting down your devices probably won’t work so well, because we need those devices for our appointments for the next day, to work on a project with our peers, or to answer an important phone call. However, it might still be important to remind yourself of the quest-ion: what things do I really want to do, before time has passed and opportunities have flown by?
