Wow, does time go by fast! It seems just yesterday that I was welcoming you back from Reading Week. Now, here we are, half way through March!! Regardless, Issue 4 of The Iron Warrior is here and ready for reading. I would like to recommend reading the opinion piece ‘What about the Waterloo Dubai Campus?’ by Hachem Hamadeh. It brings forward a good perspective from the Dubai students and what they think of the Dubai Campus closure. My favourite article of the issue goes to ‘Gretchen, Leggings Aren’t Going to Happen’ by Mammaknowsbest. It is quite a funny read and definitely covers the don’ts of wearing leggings. I would like to thank Farzi Yusufali this issue for continually taking on the Point vs. Counterpoint article. It is always a challenge to write and I appreciate her efforts the past three issues. I also want to thank Alex Lee for helping out this weekend on layout.
Now that my spiel is finished, I want to get into the main meat of my editorial. By this stage in university, I am starting to wrap up my undergraduate degree. Fellow colleagues are talking about where they want to go and how they plan on getting there. While doing the same, I came to realise that despite my past longings to stay in university forever, I am ready to move on. How could this be? I fondly remember not even a year ago saying that leaving undergrad would be the worst thing ever. Thinking deeper about it, I started to wonder, was this presumed preparedness to leave me becoming jaded? How has this dreaded symptom that fourth years tend to develop managed to get to me as well?! THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! Now, I like to think I am on the lower end of the jaded scale, but I must say it is definitely there.
So I have to wonder, how does one become jaded? Is it a gradual process, or one day do you just lose that upmh? With this Editorial, I hope to present my thoughts as to why we become jaded over our years at university.
Before I begin, I first want to define jaded so we are all on the same page. By searching Google, jaded has the adjectives of tired, boredom or lacking enthusiasm.
So when we came to university as a first year, there is so much excitement (and nervousness) about basically ALL of the things. We were dropped off in a place unfamiliar and completely unknown to us. While it was a little nerve-racking, it was exciting to have basically an unlimited list of things to do! There were hundreds of people to meet, new areas to explore, an unfamiliar city to investigate, and new course material to learn (haha yeah right, like that was one of our excitements). As we began to do all of those exciting things, we started crossing them off that seemingly infinite list. Then one day, that list starts to have an end. We don’t necessarily notice this, but it’s when jadedness begins to fester. By the time we reach our last year or so of undergrad, there is usually not much left to do on that list. We’ve been to all the bars, we’ve met all the people in our class, we have our set of friends we hang out with, and we have developed a routine called daily life. This routine is what starts the jaded transition. Once life becomes routine, we begin to complain how things are boring, nothing is as exciting as it used to be, and the dreaded words of “you are getting old” come out of someone’s mouth. While we think it is a standard part of growing up, it’s actually a result of our own doing.
One of the things which encourage this routine to develop is the people who we hang out with (no offense). By the last year of university, we have met basically everyone that we want to meet. The class knows everyone’s name, we have tight bonds with our roommates, and we have that core group of friends. We become set and comfortable with these people and get stuck in that. Group events although still a great time, don’t have quite the same excitement as they did back in first and second year. The jadedness has started to move in.
Right now, we are heavily considering our future. Jobs, grad school, time off, that trip to Europe, are all on our minds. We are constantly trying to figure out what is going to happen next and, as a result, the present becomes quite dull. There is no full time salary, warm sun, or innovative research that the future entices us with. Once we start wanting that future to come sooner and sooner, the amount of jadedness increases because what we have now isn’t our ideal situation. We lose enthusiasm for the present.
This idea of the future, being the independent individual we are imagining, further develops the jadedness inside of us. In school, we are dictated by preset schedules, assignment deadlines, and are consistently told day in and day out what to do. Once in fourth year, we want to be our own individuals and take life in our own direction. Therefore, the day-to-day requirements become a chore and are no longer appreciated as they once used to be. We have also developed a decently-sized ego. We know the drill, we know how to study, how to pass a test, and it’s just a matter of waiting out the rest of the term (at least in our minds). We are ready to do our own thing, but the institution is preventing that, so we become less enthused and more jaded about the school environment.
This leads into the next point. Our egos that we have developed make us want to be heard; we want our say in how things are done because we are clearly knowledgeable after spending five years in the university environment. Unfortunately, the university is not prepared to give that to us. They aren’t reaching out to get our feedback as they could be and it comes across as ignoring us. We feel we can contribute so much and when the university fails to ask it of us, we become jaded because of the lack of interest in our knowledge. This is a vicious cycle, I know!
All of these points I discussed unfortunately are further enhanced for us engineers because of our five year program. This extra year of time in university just allows more routine to develop, more ego to build, which in the end, makes us more jaded.
So is it too late? For us fourth years, it pretty much is. We will soon begin that next stage in life where hopefully the jadedness resides as we become that young first year again experiencing the new and unknown stage of life. But for those of you who still have a long way to go, I have a few tips to keep the jadedness out:
Continually try to break routine. When I say this, I don’t mean change your study habits for every exam, or vary when you get up in the day. I mean change how you go about dealing with a situation, or who you hang out with. During your spare time, don’t fall back to that favourite video game or the TV series you have seen three times, do something spontaneous. This will help keep your daily life full of new interesting things which should hopefully keep your interest in university life.
Try and meet new people. Once we get stuck in the friend zone (see the Topz column from last issue), we lose the variation in our life. You don’t need to seek out people to become your best friend which you share all your sex stories with. These are the people who if you see in the hall, you can stop and have a conversation with. As you get closer to fourth year, and jadedness starts to develop, these conversations will help bring the variation you need to daily life.
Things always seem greener on the other side. Before you start longing for that full time salary, or the easy hours of a grad student, try to remember the things you will be giving up. It’s only until you cross that line to the other side where you realise how much you miss the life of an undergrad student. Why wait until then to realize you miss it? Put the future aside and live in the now. By doing so, the jaded feelings will hopefully subside.
Test your knowledge. Once we get in our heads that we already know ‘everything’ we need to know, we lose the drive to learn more. The process of learning something new keeps us engaged and hopefully enthused with what we are learning. As soon as we only learn the bare minimum, then it becomes routine. Don’t forget, routine leads to jadedness.
Pass on your knowledge. Just because the university doesn’t ask for our opinions doesn’t mean we can’t still give it. If there is something you want to see changed before you are finished your degree, then get to it! Make that change happen. If that’s not your style, then try passing on that knowledge to someone else. Doing so helps reduce the feeling of being ignored and eases the sense of becoming unneeded or obsolete. As soon as you feel wanted or needed again, then the jadedness will start to subside.
So I have said a lot which isn’t backed by science, statistics, or even a bit of research on my part. It’s all from personal experience and observation. Being jaded is not something which is inevitable; it’s something which happens based on how we run our day to day lives. If you take one thing from this Editorial, then my suggestion is to make an effort to break routine. Do something spontaneous and who knows what new opportunities present them. If it works well, you will soon be adding things back to that empty list.
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