My advice: how I make the most of college [#69]

The common adage is that college is the best four years of your life. I certainly hope that's false—but if it's true, I have 1,169 days until I graduate UT Austin. That seems like a long time, right? No! It's already been 190 days since I moved in. I'm already 14% of the way to being done with college. Where did all the time go??

I know what you're thinking. Nathan, stop being so existential: you're a freshman! Just keep your grades up, hang out with friends, do some stuff to advance your professional career, and have fun. You'll be fine.

But this little nagging voice in the back of my head says "Nathan you gotta make the most of every day! You don't want to look back on your college experience and think 'oh man I regret not doing XYZ'!"

The little nagging voice can occasionally be supremely annoying—but in general, it's helped me craft some good guidelines for myself. I'll discuss my guidelines in this article.

1

I can't emphasize enough the importance of sleep. Staying up till 2am, or even 4am, is accepted and even glorified by college students. I think this is really strange for two reasons:

1. Nothing good happens from 12:00-4:00am, with few exceptions. Anyone who says they can "study" between those hours is either lying or has had a ridiculous amount of caffeine.
2. The next day, you're super tired and your focus is shot, so you can't really get anything productive done.

I understand college students don't always have the best judgment. But it's just not good to get fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night.¹ The rest of your waking hours are substantially less fun/productive if you don't get enough sleep. The whole point is to make every day count—don't make most days suck because you're not getting enough sleep.

2

I'm a big opponent to short-form video platforms (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc.) because using those platforms throws time into the void.

When was the last time you felt truly lasting satisfaction watching an Instagram Reel? Probably never. When was the last time you said to yourself: "Huh scrolling on TikTok is something I'm going look back on fondly"? Probably never.

If I were to start using Reels for 30 minutes a day, over the course of 1169 days, I would waste 24 full days watching Reels. If I were a Reels addict who spent 3 hours/day on the platform, I would waste 146 full days watching Reels.

If you are a [TikTok / Instagram Reels / YouTube Shorts] addict, no shame on you.² Just consider: is that really how you want to spend your time?

3

I'm a big fan of Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion."

This may sound counterintuitive, but the more commitments I have (part-time job, tutoring, chess club officer, board game club officer, etc.), the more productive I find myself in the time I have remaining. How does this happen?

I have a theory: the fewer commitments I have, the more free time I have. The more free time I have, the lazier I tend to be. I'll watch YouTube videos or read through the entire Wikipedia list of helicopter prison escapes.³ If I have a lot of commitments, I manage to squeeze schoolwork in, and I end up being pretty efficient.

Therefore, I try to assume as many commitments (aka side quests) as reasonably possible. My days are busy yet fun and fulfilling.

Conclusion

I have much more advice. But alas, I'm still a freshman and I'm not very wise. I should save my "master list of college advice" for when I'm graduating. But please take some of my advice—I swear it's good! Get enough sleep, don't use short-form video platforms, and don't be afraid to take on a bunch of commitments.

Footnotes

¹ There are so many studies on this that if I quoted them all, this article would probably be three billion words long.

² Oh, who am I kidding. Shame on you! That's seriously what you want your life to be like?

³ "The record for most helicopter escapes goes to convicted murderer Pascal Payet, who has used helicopters to escape from prisons in 2001, 2003, and most recently 2007." WHAT?? You would think the people in charge of preventing helicopter prison escapes would figure it out after he escaped not once but twice—but no!