In the sometimes hectic college life, bragging – voluntarily or not – becomes an unavoidable part of who you are. And, like is the case with most other brags, college bragging is a war of numbers. How many homework assignments do you have? How many courses you took? How many 8:15 courses you have? How many hours did you sleep? How many and how many… Questions you hear all over the campus.
At the beginning of this year, I had an unsuccessful attempt of hiding the number of courses I was taking from my fellow students. It didn’t work as planned. They bully you until you become annoyed enough to yell that magic number to everyone around. Your confession is not the end, though. It brings along more questions, bitter remarks, envious, arrogant or condescending looks.
The recipe for success in front of the others is feeling miserable. The one with the most homework assignments, with the least hours of sleep per night, or with the most courses is the winner of this mad race. Is the quantity and not the quality that counts – two easy math courses earn you more points in the eyes of your colleagues than does a graduate physics course, and the list of examples could go on. Enjoying what you’re doing is not an option either. Or at least not without the enjoyment being paradoxically doubled by sorrow and bitterness.
I’d love if everyone cared about his or her own courses, grades or hours of sleep. If people could enjoy what they are doing without feeling an acute need for comparison. But in a place where being blue is a condition for being cool, my optimism might be misplaced.
