It’s the first month of college, or maybe it’s just the first month after a summer so long that all the memories of college have faded into long, somnolent days of sun, sand and sea. Either way, you’re overwhelmed with the freshness of it all: new faces, old friends, the smell of paint, the stench of mold, new sights and friendly nooks and crannies.
If this is your first time, there is the sudden leap from an educational environment where all learning was by rote, detention and parents screaming up the stairs. To a regime where instructors call you Mr. and Ms., detention is a thing of the past, and no-one looks over your shoulder.
Other changes also creep in. The lack of oversight is accompanied by a lack of structure. Well, not a total lack, so much as the admonition that you’re on your own now; you make your own schedule, and you chase yourself. These insights are followed quickly by the realization that the pressures of college are enormous.
Professors are long on what is required, but they’re a little less helpful about how to meet their standards. You’re all ready to learn long lists of everything offered, but instructors are introducing you to new concepts of thinking for yourself, analyzing and writing critically. “Just tell me what you want,” students cry. Nope, that’s the beauty of college; you get to do this all on your lonesome. “I want guidance,” you say. Aha, that was high school. This is college. Suddenly, all this new freedom becomes a double-edged sword.
There was a time when life was a simple structure; you go to school, then college and next comes a forty-year career with a single company. Now, people are expected to carve out their own life career from day one. You think you have a pause before all that pressure is piled on. Think again. College has become a battleground of peer pressure. Everyone is jostling for that extra edge on their resume, and it doesn’t get any easier after freshman year.
The immediate impression one has of students at Clemson is that they are more combative and competitive than previous generations and also more anxious. Are the two connected?
All teens and twenty somethings josh and tussle. They strut like peacocks or peahens and parade the goods, worrying if they’re noticed. It’s a part of the first stirrings of establishing social hierarchy. But there is a new edge to millennial elbowing that seems to be about more than eye-gloss and six-packs.
Millennials don’t come to college certain of a salary for the rest of their lives. They sense the only person they can rely on to create a career is themselves. In the main, millennials aren’t at college to have fun or to learn; they are here to gain ascendancy in the hugely competitive discipline of being number one.
Every social interaction is intense. Every question answered in class is an edge over the rest. Every paper submitted is a tactical gain over potential competition. The high jinx of dorms or Greek life is a metaphor for the gladiatorial combat of career hierarchy to come.
For some, the combat, the constant competitive striving, is open, and the contest is invigorating. But for others of a less forward nature, the opportunity exists for more subversive placement improvement: the invention of the web and social media. If you can’t win the peer pressure adventure of the classroom, the library, the field, the dorm, there is always the faceless arena of the electronic world.
Where does all of this leave us? Seemingly, we exist in an environment of constant pressure, not just from the demands of education itself but from our classmates also. The pressure is made more difficult since it is not only visible but often invisible. The visible makes us alert, while the invisible breeds anxiety. This anxiety, in turn, makes us even more sensitive to the next social interaction. Every comment is a dagger thrust, every suggestion an open assault. We must be on guard simply because someone smiled.
None of this is intended to scare but rather to put everyone on guard. College is an exciting, adventurous time. It can also be a breeding ground for anxiety. Be careful not to be putting pressure on your fellow students, and, if you are feeling the onset of pressure, remember there are groups all over campus ready to help and relieve the burden. No-one is truly on their own at Clemson.
