Get the degree. Build the résumé. Network. Intern. Graduate early if you can and move on.

For a generation obsessed with maximizing productivity, college has become just another step on the grand checklist leading us to financial success.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with ambition — college is a launchpad for your career, after all. But somewhere along the way, the pursuit of success has overshadowed what makes the college experience truly valuable: the freedom to learn, to explore, to experiment — and yes, to be hedonistic.

Keep in mind, there is a reason people look back on their college years with rose-tinted nostalgia. It’s one of the only times in life where you live in such close proximity to so many people your age, with minimal responsibilities and infinite possibilities.

College is meant to be a little hedonistic. 

You don’t have to be popping champagne on a yacht to live hedonistically, though props to you if you are. 

College hedonism is smaller and weirder: it’s eating pizza on a dorm floor at 2 a.m., sunbathing on the green between classes or going to a poetry reading just because someone cute invited you.

It’s hosting dinner parties with friends who can barely cook, blasting music just to clean your room, kissing people you maybe shouldn’t and sleeping guiltlessly until noon.

It’s playing intramural dodgeball, making art just to hang it in your bathroom, joining clubs you immediately drop and embracing all the dumb, joyful, deeply unserious pleasures that make this time in your life feel like life.

This is because the true purpose of higher education was never to make you employable. It was to help you become a well-rounded, curious and thoughtful human being. That kind of growth doesn’t only come from networking events in the Davis Center or LinkedIn certifications.

It happens in late-night conversations with strangers turned friends, spontaneous trips to the gas station — or Canada — and all the creative hobbies and impulsive endeavors that university life empowers. To do this you have to mess around, take risks and lean into the reckless optimism that you’ll only get to feel at this stage of your life.

Of course, discipline and hard work are part of the deal, but the current “grindset” mentality — the belief that every waking moment is an opportunity for maximal self-improvement — turns college into a sterile, joyless exercise in brand-building.

Burning yourself out in the name of constant growth won’t make you more successful. It’ll make you more exhausted. Strategic bursts of effort, paired with intentional rest and pleasure, are more sustainable than treating every day like a boot camp for your future self.

Now, balance is easier to preach than to practice. And, unfortunately, it’s not equally accessible.

At UVM, only 3.8% of students come from families making less than $20,000 per year. Meanwhile, 55% of students come from families earning over $110,000 and 6.3% of that group earns over $630,000, according to a January 2017 New York Times report.

When you’re juggling part-time jobs, financial aid paperwork and tuition anxiety, joy starts to feel like a luxury. 

For students from lower-income backgrounds, the hedonism of college is often tempered by necessity. Fun comes with a higher cost, whether that’s time, money or energy, which makes it even more important to affirm that rest and joy aren’t indulgences. They’re essential.

Students with more financial privilege, on the other hand, have the freedom to explore more widely. 

So use it well. 

You don’t have to spend your entire college experience polishing your professional brand. Your tuition is already paying for the experience. At the very least, try to be cooler than your parents.

That being said, none of this means that you should coast through your university years. There’s a difference between making the most of college and making it easy.

Sure, easy A’s look good on paper. But in 10 years, you won’t remember all those classes you skipped. You will remember the one where you sat on the edge of your seat, the one that made you question your beliefs or shaped the way you see the world.

College is one of the rare times in your life where you can pursue knowledge purely for its own sake. Don’t waste it.

You have your whole life to be serious. You only get a few years to live in that liminal space between adolescence and adulthood where it’s still acceptable to make impulsive decisions with questionable foresight. Our brains are literally not done developing.

So don’t let your worries about not doing enough — or doing too much — ruin your college experience.

Fun isn’t wasteful, it’s vital.

Take the challenging class with the tough professor. Stay out too late on a Wednesday. Skip your morning lecture a couple times — just avoid missing it during finals week. Try the weird hobby you’re unsure about, even if you quit it a month later.

College should be fun. Not because it doesn’t matter, but because it does.

Lucas Martineau is a senior political science, art history and psychology triple major from New York City. He has been an Opinion Columnist for the Cynic since the fall of 2021. In his free time he enjoys cooking, going to museums and arguing with strangers online.