Going to university can be seen as a marvelous experience, and it is in so many ways, I have to be honest. You learn a lot, you got the chance to finally choose the studies that you love, you meet new people, you experience a new life, in a new town, in a new country, you just build yourself at university, modeling your young self to become the grown up you are craving to be.
However, the path to your future is not always all cute and pink. It can be hard. You'll have a lot of work to do, a lot of stress, you'll have to accommodate yourself in this new life, and even though it is sometimes nice and interesting, it can also bring you down pretty quickly. I studied for three years at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. Three years that were quite perfect. Of course, there was a lot of stress with the assignments, the exams, everything was so brand new for me. But at least I was at home, I knew that if I had a bad day I could just go talk to my mum or have a sleepover at my boyfriend's family house. Yet this year I'm far from home. Amsterdam is a nice place, don't misunderstand me. It is a lovely town, with so many things to see, so many things to do, so many people to meet. Yet sometimes it is not enough to make you forget the rest of it.
What's the rest of it? It is all the stress and the weird feelings you have to deal with when you're far from home and dealing with an intense study program. In this post I just would like to talk about student anxiety, and how much I felt like nobody cared for it. Once I went to see one of my teacher to tell him that I might leave the class earlier because I felt really bad and anxious and was afraid I couldn't take it today. He juste answered, "ok, but if you leave before 7 (the class was from 4 to 8) you'll have to do another assignment to apologize for your absence. I was shocked. Really, this is how you deal with that? I thought you were a smart man, studying Humanities and pretending to be open minded. So of course I stayed until 8 and sealed with my anxiety for 4 hours. Every morning waking up has been a complete nightmare for several days, not to say weeks. I felt like the weight of the world was on my chest, not wanting to let me breath, not wanting to let me feel good.
I'm not saying here that I have any solution, because as I'm writing to you right now I feel like I will have to go back to work right after, even if I think I need a trash tele break for 30 minutes just to calm down and enjoy a little bit more my studies. But I'll just say one more thing to you: try your best to get yourself organized in order to enjoy your studies. Dealing with a tone of work can sometimes be a question of organization, sometimes it can be about working on yourself, yet whatever it is, don't be afraid to tell someone how much your studies weight on you. I know how it does feel, and how hard it is to deal with that everyday, but sometimes just to find the right person to talk to can make a change, so don't be ashamed, you're far from being alone.
xo
Amy
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