Reflections On My Experience In Fantasy Land

Three Point Essay | I just graduated from University

Jun 02, 2023

Here’s 7 takeaways from my 4 years as a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2019-2023:

1. Party culture is overrated

I remember my roommate Liam and I hammering Tito’s shots in our fluorescent-lit dorm full of stupid posters as the sun went down, knowing that it was the calm before the storm of all calm before the storms. The first night of zoomass. After going to a frat and dancing all night in a shoulder-to-shoulder sweatfest while meeting funny dudes and attractive girls every second, I was hooked on the lifestyle.

But it got old. Fast.

I have no universal issue with party culture. I always thought it was awesome. For obvious reasons—you meet tons of people and it’s an addicting adrenaline rush.

But over time, this way of living—the endless pursuit of pleasure, self-indulgence, promiscuity, undisciplined diet, alcohol & weed ~3x per week etc.—leads to physical deterioration and emotional bankruptcy; it leads to weakness and sadness. Duh. Yet I always heard people in college complaining about how they were anxious, depressed or ‘unmotivated’ all the time when the thought of staying in on a weekend to relax, or do a hobby, or work on a personal project, or do literally anything else other than get plastered at the same place over and over never once crossed their mind.

It’s why so many people either end up in poor condition (too hungover to exercise), fatter (excess grubs), dumber (drunk decisions), or just feel empty inside (meaningless sex & weak ‘friendships’ where the only thing you bond over is getting drunk at the same place).

Yeah.

I don’t mean to demonize drinking and party culture, because anyone who knows me knows I’ve been a big fan of both. And the reason I know the things in the previous paragraph is because they applied to me at times in college. (Although thankfully, I never blew up like a balloon). The point is—the absurd extent to which that particular lifestyle is celebrated and encouraged in university is, for lack of better terms, sickening madness. And more importantly—yes, partying all the time in college is exciting, but are you going to keep living like that? Are you serious?

The way I stayed sane amongst all the insanity in university was cultivating habits that, you know, don’t turn you into an out of shape perpetual ball of anxiety! Like weight-lifting, meditation, cold showers, journaling, reading books, higher sexual exclusivity, plenty of sunlight and walks outside, stretching muscles, intermittent fasting, and drinking more water.

I don’t stay true to all these habits all the time. I’m human. But I promise you, adopting some of these habits with some consistency will lead you to a heightened peace of body and peace of mind. Even if you still drink and party sometimes.

2. A city of 18-23 year old’s is magic

No surprise—the best part of college was the people I met. Umass is ~20k undergrad, ~30k total. This fact alone was always thrilling.

I was also lucky to live in a house with a bunch of intelligent and sociable comedians. Love y’all. I cherish the memories of laughing together so hard that we couldn’t breathe due to stomach pain. That’s the best feeling ever.

3. The majority of my classes were soul-crushing

*I double majored in Communication and Spanish. I also minored in Business but didn’t complete it because my BS detector overheated and burned my brain during management 301.*

My Communication and Business courses were almost always depressing. The former was mostly a professor spewing (without exception radically left-leaning) political opinions; the latter was mostly busy work meant for a computer, not a human being.

The Communication classes in particular emitted a nasty stench of BS, even flat-out corruption. The fact that these clown ‘teachers’ make six figure salaries dishing out the garbage they do and proclaim it higher education is criminal.

Maybe worse, instead of promoting creativity and entrepreneurship, business courses condition you to think like an employee. Definitely worse, professors who’ve never run a business before teaching people super expensive courses about business is an egregious scam in my not-so-humble opinion.

I can’t speak for other majors. And I bet people in pre-law, pre-med, computer science, and engineering would say their classes were extremely useful.

But I did get value out of college classes. There was much writing freedom in some communication classes which was cool. I enjoyed many of my gen-eds. And spending four years in Spanish classes where the professors rarely uttered a lick of English helped my language skills so much.

I don’t want to give the impression it was all bad, or that I think I’m too smart for the classes I took. But damn, the bad was shockingly bad. It’s one reason I became obsessed with self-education and reading books. It was even a big motivation for starting this blog. So in that weird way, I’m thankful that most of my classes sucked.

The future belongs not to good little boys and girls who focus on their GPA’s and their *increasingly unimportant* credentials, but to driven and open-minded autodidacts who focus on developing practical skills.

4. No one is more delusional about both the extent of their knowledge and the validity of their beliefs than college kids

It’s said that the greatest enemy of knowledge is the illusion of knowledge. Whoever said that must’ve been talking about college kids. Or more specifically, me during my sophomore year.

Nowadays, I’m at-least intelligent enough to know I’m dumb. As the OG wise man in a white robe said “the only wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” The more I’ve learned the past two years, the more I’ve learned I’m a fool. I suspect this trend will continue.

My antidote to delusion has been doing my best to stay curious and stay humble. Two of the few things I know for sure is that there’s always more to learn, and that anything I believe could be wrong. It would be nice if more college kids—and people in general—also realized this.

5. Interacting with people from different parts of the world is intriguing and hilarious

Students come to Umass from all over the world.

I’ll never forget this squad of 20 Chinese bros who would go play basketball at the rec center every weekend morning at 10 AM sharp. I would usually hop in and be the only white guy on the court. This is a dynamic I’m used to. But it’s usually me and black people who speak English. When I would hit a tough shot they would go “oh ho hoooh oh” and yell the name of some NBA player.

I asked so many questions whenever I met people from different parts of Asia and the Middle East at school in particular, because of how little I truly know about all their cultures. Absorbing the perspectives of people from different cultures is so fascinating and valuable.

6. University is all about exploration and self-discovery

The ancient Greeks had the famous maxim to know thyself (Γνῶθι σεαυτόν). “Knowing yourself does not need to be some existential metaphysical spiritual search” the writer Yous explains, “A simple and pragmatic look at your personality and proclivities will be more than sufficient.”

With all the independence and growth you experience at school, it is the time to do this evaluation of your personality and proclivities.

For me, I realized my childhood dream of being a writer. I realized how much I love learning languages. I realized how much I love reading. I realized how much better I am than you at basketball. I realized how much of a burning desire I have to create something of value and become wealthy off of it.

I already knew these things, but the college environment gives you the freedom and confidence to double down on who you are and what you’re good at.

7. No one knows what they’re doing

This is one of the most liberating ideas. “There are no adults” Naval Ravikant once said, “Everyone's making it up as they go along.”

It’s a stupid but common mistake to think other people have it all figured out. Especially if I liked a person, I would take too much of what they said as valid, instead of being objective and thinking critically about their takes.

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” Goethe once wrote. After the experience of college, I’m still working on it. But I feel much closer to self-trust, even though I still have no idea what I’m doing.

For real, I have no idea what I’m doing. How am I a conscious four-limbed organism on a floating rock spinning in an infinite darkness sending out symbols on a screen through a mystical invisible communication web?

Shoutout Umass. Thank you for the memories.

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