At a large university like Yale, it is easy to feel overwhelmed as a freshman. The main reason for this feeling is that the university is simply too grand an environment above and beyond anything I have ever experienced.
In the first couple of weeks, I navigated around the huge and beautiful Yale campus, got to know the enormous amount of resources available to students, and managed to maintain my composure in my new surroundings. However, after last month’s extracurricular bazaar—an extravaganza where several hundred undergraduate organizations at Yale descended on the gym to recruit new members, I panicked. I shuffled the twenty or so brochures I collected at the bazaar, and tried to make sense of them. Which club am I going to join in? Which activity is the best fit? Which organization offers the best opportunities? I felt paralyzed and bewildered, for all the clubs looked alluring and I had no idea how to choose. I wanted to put the brochures away, but the overwhelming sensation would not go away. Was I the only one panicking?
Before entering college, I was prepared to get overwhelmed, but not this overwhelmed. The panic attack was scary, but then I started to search for the reason for my distress. I had not expected panic, because I had believed that my high school experience provided me with enough sense of extracurricular activities. However, that was just high school. Every freshman came from high school, and every one of those high schools must not have had several hundred student organizations for students to choose from. My indecision was not eased, but realizing that everyone was more or less panicking alleviated my stress. I was not alone.
Later, I took a deep breath and went through all the brochures I had collected and decided for myself what I would like to discover, and I finally decided to try a few activities for this semester. I also observed that those who excel in extracurricular activities usually took up only one or two, and my fear of “not doing enough” was gone. After all, no one is a superhuman; everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.
After quelling my concern about extracurricular activities, I found myself challenged by my courses. As an international student, I realized that my difficulties with coursework may be distinct. But as it turned out, again, I was not the only one struggling. When I thought the readings were too much, everyone else thought the reading was too much. When I spent long hours on my reading, others also spent a lot of time. When I found that some of the readings did not make much sense to me, my classmates complained about the abstruse readings as well. Furthermore, what I had heard back in China about American students devouring dozens of books every week and absorbing volumes of esoteric classic works with ease, turned out to be false. As beginners in the academic world, no one around can read dozens of books in a week and nearly everyone frowns at the arcane writings on philosophy and politics. Once again, realizing that I am not alone eased my self-doubt and helped me concentrate on finding a better study method and enjoying the adjustment over time.
The most important observation I have made in the first two months of college is that although colleges boast of diversity, students have shared struggles once they are in college. Self-pity and self-doubt do not solve common problems. When faced with these challenges, I remind myself that I am not the only one. I’m learning to take things easy, perhaps that easy-going attitude could make learning easier!