Campus Life: Either you win or die

Carl Maswoswa

Youth Interactive Writer

The day l heard my university application was successful, l had so much hope and excitement. 

Seeing other kids in the neighbourhood going abroad to study or even at local universities such as  National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and University of Zimbabwe (UZ) among others,  l would literally feel like a woman in labour pains.

Though I have never witnessed that but the stories surrounding the issue, always scare me.

Living far from home had always been my dream, my parents had been strict and it choked my inner creativity to experience another kind of life.

Campus life is where we find our true self whether we have a passion in writing, fashion or accounting. 

Our own parents may prescribe another career choice onto us which may not be interesting in our quest to be great. Back to reality, campus life has become a trendy issue these days with the ever-changing technology, economic instability and a wide array of factors such as peer pressure. 

Kasayira, Chipandambira and Hungwe (2007) in their study of the coping strategies used by university students in Zimbabwe, noted that university students use ineffective coping strategies that predispose them to stress. 

One in every three students on Campus either changes for the better or worse, but what is causing these changes? 

Students who go to college come from different backgrounds and have different norms and values. 

During college students deal with a unique amount of pressure including a new lifestyle, friends, roommates, exposure to new cultures and alternate ways of thinking. 

This article puts it into perspective many factors are at play which either make campus life a hell hole or an incubator to your dreams.

Social Adjustment

College students face a myriad of challenges in terms of socialisation from having new roommates, classmates, adjusting to a new culture, being around new people if there is any at all, a new language at that university and students feel lonely especially first years. 

Even though technology has become the in thing, the social fabric still needs to be intact. 

Due to a lack of social interaction and social groups at some universities, it is causing many students to commit suicide, have depression and antisocial behaviours as everyone goes about minding their own business when at University. 

I remember when l was a first year, a student was involved in a car accident due to the fact that he wanted to impress his friends (whilst drunk), that he can drive at any speed. 

The main challenge campus life poses, is it can either make you or break you depending on the people you hang around with.

Academic Adjustment

Nine out of 10 students confirm that  being an academia is hard. 

Having passed your Matric or A Level, studying will come to a point where you will want to give up. 

Even adjusting to new studying habits may be a tiresome task with the huge amount of assignments given every day. 

The burden of balancing a social life and academics may be stressful to students who cannot handle it. 

Thus in context, some say it is better done with some kind of support system. An overwhelmed student is a drained individual who needs help at the earliest attention. 

There is a case of medical students at some universities, who did not sleep because they wanted to be A listers (A students) in class. However they did not live to tell the tale of their endeavours. Lack of sleep resulted in them suffering from insomnia which later killed them.

Emotional Adjustment

This is the most important factor in any setup and type of university, which contributes more to the success of a student on campus. It has been said IQ contributes more ,however being emotionally aware takes the ticket home as the winning factor in a more practical aspect. 

If a student cannot handle his or her emotions on an academic level then that will impact negatively on  their academic performance. Anyone can criticize these facts as somewhat biased, this is a mirror of what we are seeing every day.

Whatever you may be facing at school or in life do not forget to share it to people around you. A problem concealed disturbs the equilibrium in your thinking capacity and wellbeing.