If a person is 40 plus years old, it may be easy for some to look back at college years and say that was a relatively stress-free time. It's not like that for everyone.
No but post college is more stressful. The people saying college is stressful, will be terrible employees, late on rent, maxed out cards, divorced, seeing a therapist to handle stress.
100% correct. For me the ~3 years right after college were the most stressful. I WANTED to go back to college. Life smacks you in the face post graduation.
Out of curiosity, are you 40+ years old? I can understand college seeming very stressful in the moment, but working full time, getting married, starting a family, seeing your parents age and pass on...well, that stuff takes a toll. It makes college seem pretty worry-free. YMMV, of course.
I told you that I earned both an undergrad and masters in electrical engineering. My job is much more grueling than college was.
Were you a a D1 scholarship distance runner? If you weren't, I don't think you understand how hard it is to balance school, 80 mile weeks, travel, and pressure to perform.
If you were, kudos to you. You obviously had good time management skills. I ran with a 28:xx 10k runner who was towards the top in his class in aerospace engineering. By nature, he was a laid back guy but he was an emotional wreck by his senior due to the stress.
What kind of fluff degress did you people take? School was relentless.
Computer Science, back in the mid-1990s. I also have an MS. I worked two campus jobs, took a full credit load, and still managed to drink 3-4 nights a week and have a helluva good time. I wish I could have stayed in for a fifth year (about half my friends took 5 years, I did it in four), but I needed to get to grad school and get out, to make money. This was also back in the day of 7:30 a.m. classes, which I am told now no longer exist. There are a host of other things that have made college easier on the newer generations. But they pay a lot more for it, that's for sure.
Damn you old as sh*t, mustve been nice being able to pay for college with less than a year of work
Computer Science, back in the mid-1990s. I also have an MS. I worked two campus jobs, took a full credit load, and still managed to drink 3-4 nights a week and have a helluva good time. I wish I could have stayed in for a fifth year (about half my friends took 5 years, I did it in four), but I needed to get to grad school and get out, to make money. This was also back in the day of 7:30 a.m. classes, which I am told now no longer exist. There are a host of other things that have made college easier on the newer generations. But they pay a lot more for it, that's for sure.
Damn you old as sh*t, mustve been nice being able to pay for college with less than a year of work
Honestly, it was very doable. Look, I paid about $400 per month in rent. Probably about the same for food and other stuff. My tuition was about $1200 per semester. A few hundred for books. I worked two student jobs, then picked up a third job during the summer, and made it through four years of undergrad with no debt. And I paid my entire way (no parental help). I was pretty bitter about it though, as most of my friends didn't work and had plenty of spare cash from mommy and daddy to throw around. I missed a lot because I was at work. Thankfully a pitcher of beer was only $2 back then.
If a person is 40 plus years old, it may be easy for some to look back at college years and say that was a relatively stress-free time. It's not like that for everyone.
Out of curiosity, are you 40+ years old? I can understand college seeming very stressful in the moment, but working full time, getting married, starting a family, seeing your parents age and pass on...well, that stuff takes a toll. It makes college seem pretty worry-free. YMMV, of course.
My eldest offspring is past her 40th birthday.
It really depends. Eg. N.A.I.A., D1 & D2 athletic programs snatching athletic grants from college kids. Living in athletic dorm, I saw a XC guy get his athletic grant snatched from him. I saw it numerous times, Am. football players. Full ride for football players to nothing is a big shock!
Numerous friends die, college age, driving collisions. Some trauma college age deaths too. A lot of parents divorce once kids get sent off to college. Family member(s) may suffer cancer or other fatal diseases while one is in college.
Stresses of life can happen at any age. Relationship stress can happen at any age. Mental health on campus personnel are more aware today than they were decades ago. Life altering things occur. Many show up on college campus to be an engineer or medical doctor. Some figure out soon, they cannot get B or better grades in calculus courses.
By the time I was I was thirty-something, I guess I was numb to life stresses. If you didn't have anyone die close to you when you were in college, if you didn't see a friend going from full-ride to zero money while in college, college may have been a relatively stress free time for you.
Now the fun starts. For the first time in your life, your running is truly yours:
No coach telling you what to do.
No team to score points for.
No scholarship to keep.
So pick a race that looks fun to you, and get after it. Pick an all comers track meet, or a trail race, or a destination marathon, or your hometown 5k. Or any combination thereof. Whatever looks fun to you.
Promise yourself that you will not mope about a "bad" race. If you got to run it, it was good. Remember, it's a hobby now, so keep it fun. If it's not fun, why bother? Running and racing are now a stress relief from real life; never let it be a source of stress itself.
I have more fun with running post-college than I did running in college. It's a great hobby, so long as you remember that it's a hobby.
When I was running in college I thought it would be the the best time of my life, and I took the last few seasons on the team very seriously. At the same time school wasn't easy, I was an average student at a top 20 school and had to work hard to keep afloat. That said, I wasn't the most efficient at either running or school. Pushed too hard with training and often had nothing left for races. And our team culture at the time was toxic. So indeed that part was very stressful, to put in the work and then some but to consistently come up short. Even though I thought college was great at the time I was running, looking back I had a much better time after and set all my PRs in my mid-late 20s. I don't regret continuing to run. School? I got through it okay, but study habits could have been better.
Post college I pretty much struck out on my own because I was living in areas where there were no teams and often no training groups. It was great when I found them some years but found I was fine on my own.
As far as post-college work and continued education. It has varied. I coasted through my masters program (science) because I was a better student by then and I enjoyed the flexibility. Some jobs have been really tough and stressful, some have been more flexible.
I ran competitively after college for a few years. I enjoyed it a lot, mostly coaching myself and calling the shots.
College was also much harder than real life. I had a challenging major, a full workload almost every semester. And then running every day. Since graduating, life is generally easier—having money is definitely a part of that. But doing my STEM job every day for ~8 hours is much more cohesive and siloed than say, waking up, working on an essay, going for a run, going to a dining hall, going to a class, going to work on a problem set of algorithm problems for the 3rd night in a row, then doing some other homework or studying for a test, then going home, repeat.