Pressure will find you

Ntsoaki Mokete

"Varsity is going to be the best time of your life," these are the words you would have

probably heard at some point in your life. But are they true?

Tukelo Mokwena, Studing under pressure for his exam. Photo: Ntsoaki Mokete

Varsity is a place where you will eventually be able to have the time of your life.

Before that, however, many get to experience the terrible pressures that come with being a first year.

For most it is their first time away from home, the opportunity to reinvent themselves, find people they connect with and finally choose a course that they want to do.

Yet the following question arises, is it actually society that is putting too much pressure on people to go out and have the ‘Uni experience’ in order to create the opportunity to meet new people and the chance to live in a completely new place (not to mention the memories you’ll make over a few drinks)?

A few current students and recent graduates were each asked about about their university experiences. Each of them have learnt many life lessons – from not buying all the textbooks at once and being independent, budgeting money and meeting deadlines and engaging in unusual activities just to fit in.

A common pattern from most of these discussions was the existing sense of pressure, both to go to university and the overwhelming sense of it once you’re there.

Stress and anxiety are making day-to-day life difficult for many students. With mounting deadlines, pressures of job hunting and relationships to juggle – all at a young age – it’s hardly surprising.

Students wait anxiously to write thier last paper. Photo: Ntsoaki Mokete

Teboho Khofu, third year Communication student, explained that being a little older than his peers once he was in first year created a lot of pressure to excel academically, even though he knew he had always been an average student his entire life.

"Being the oldest in my class, has often required me to work harder than everyone else,” said Khofu.

Along with the great freedom that exists at university, comes an equal amount of pressure.

Many of the students interviewed, undergraduates and postgraduates in a nutshell explained that they started drinking and going out when they became students.

"When I got to university, I was as innocent as the word itself," Lerato Thula mentions.

She now feels as though her life has taken a complete 360 degree change as she started drinking for fun and rather to help subsidise the stress of studying.

Students having drinks after a long week of school Photo: Unsplash