College kills students’ time for passion projects and extracurriculars
By SABRINA FIGUEROA — sfigueroaavila@ucdavis.edu
“What do you like to do for fun?”
If I was still in high school, I would be itching to answer this question with all of the hobbies I was actually doing, but ever since I started college, I hate answering this question. Instead of excitedly describing all of the projects I’m working on, I have to answer with hobbies I dream of doing when I eventually have time or am not overcome by exhaustion.
I used to be obsessed with painting, drawing and sketching when I was younger. I still have sketchbooks full of slightly ugly art that I refuse to throw away because they are proof that I was once unafraid to “waste” time. And if I did it once, I can do it again — eventually. There’s a sketch book from the year I graduated high school waiting for me, which I stopped drawing in around the time I began my first year at UC Davis — I still keep it in hopes that I’ll pick it back up again.
One of my friend’s birthdays was over the past winter break, and I wanted to be crafty and save money. So, instead of going out and buying a card from the store, I sat down to watch the second season of “Squid Game” and made her a card. I followed tutorials, cut paper and colored with colored pencils and then it hit me: The card was still mediocre and plain at best. I sat there and wondered where all of my creativity and innovative risk-taking had gone. Most importantly, I realized that I had forgotten how fun it was to simply create things, even if my work wasn’t on par with Picasso’s or one of the other greats.
And it’s not just me, either. After I gave my friend the homemade card, we began to talk about how college and the pursuit of great careers deprived us of time to “waste” and create. Not that people don’t have time to do other things; Many students have time to hang out with friends, go to the gym and even go to parties, but those are not creative hobbies — some are not hobbies at all. There are little to no instances where we allow ourselves to just sit and create random things that don’t necessarily have a purpose outside of amusing ourselves. As students, we are conditioned to do or create things for two reasons: to achieve a grade or to further our career goals.
It’s good that we have this obligation to put school and our careers first, since education is fundamental to our society, but it’s insanely stressful to think about school, our careers and the future all the time. This is also not the way we were meant to live our human lives. We were meant to simply exist at first, so we owe it to ourselves to pick up random hobbies — drawing, knitting, crocheting, coloring books, scrapbooking, woodworking, cosplay, metalworking, origami and more — that remind us how to bring our heads down from the clouds and live in our present lives. They also remind us that we are creatures whose abilities allow us to be innovative and creative in the first place, which is something that cannot and should not be taken away.
Sometimes, I wonder if I will ever pick up those sketchbooks again. I surely hope I will, but the one thing that stops me is how to start. I could sit here and write about how to get back into pursuing your hobbies in the midst of work and school, but I genuinely don’t know how — I’d be a liar if I tried to pretend like I did.
I suppose that this is something we will all eventually learn in our own time, and if you already know how, cherish your hobby and your ability to do it freely. If you don’t, remember that it’s okay to not do a million things at once — seize that spare moment of time just to create for yourself and no one else.
Written by: Sabrina Figueroa — sfigueroaavila@ucdavis.edu
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