Navigating University Life

Coming from high school, I had no idea what to expect from college. It was so much bigger and scarier than any community I had been a part of. In my three years, I've grown accustomed  to university life, though it still comes with unique challenges.

Before college I guess I was a pretty sheltered child. I didn't go out very often at night and my parents were always able to keep a tab on me. Here at San Diego State, however, life is always on the go. A lot of us are living in dorms and apartment.

Of course there's a lot of pressure to lead a similar lifestyle to my friends at state. I want to stay on campus as long as they do, to stay up at odd hours with them, and express a lot of independence and freedom. In the beginning my friends had a hard time empathizing with my inability do the same things that they did simply because they didn't have my same limitations.

Living with my folks meant that they were still constantly snooping into what I was doing. Of course, my parents expected my social life to be the same as it always was before, when my community was pretty much just composed of the people in my neighborhood. They don't really understand why 'm away from home so often to meet with friends, because my community has shifted from where we live to the area surrounding San Diego State.

There is constant dissonance between the identity kit that I present in front of my university friends, and the one I show to my parents. Even though I only use one or the other in specific contexts, they still seem to conflict with the people outside those contexts. If I spend too much time exercising my social identity kit, it will upset my family and their expectations for me, but If exercise my family identity kit by staying home or being too responsive to my parents demands, then my friends won't think putting in enough effort to spend time with them. It's like walking on a tight rope when I try to balance the two. That is what I believe is meant by the "cost of affiliation".

This doesn't only function into my social life, but in fact has an influence on my academics as well. Despite their claims that school should always come first, the expectations of my parents come in between me and my school work. They don't know how much time college students these says have to commit to their classes in order to succeed, so they expect me to work plenty of hours which cuts into my available study time.

In my fourth year of college I'm still finding the perfect balance and trying to adapt. I guess what it all comes down to if I'm going to make sacrifices for them, if my family if going to make sacrifices for me in return.