Learning How to Become an Adult : The Life of a College Student

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Long post ahead, just a blog and long rant post. And hey finally, after two months without posting on Hive, I'm finally back!

The time goes quicker and everything is now changing — far from what I am expecting. I can say that you will always learn while you grow up and there will be a point in your life that you will realize how hard the life is if you are born into a poor and middle class family.

This blog is purely based on my perspective and experience and yours might be different on what I see. As what you know, I am a college student and now taking the adulting path of life which is challenging yet interesting.

Here's what I learned living far from my home.

Life is expensive

Not literally, but figuratively speaking, life is expensive. It is expensive to live in a city and more civilized place than living in a province. The cost of foods and products are much higher than on what I am expecting.

I remember joining on one of the Hive account@hivephilippines monthly contests where the participants were needed to budget their expenses for one week and I only spent more or less 500 pesos.

It is lower than my friends who are living in a city, besides, I am living dependently with my parents that time. But now, everything has changed when I moved to our boarding house with my friends. My parents are still giving me allowance, but you will learn how to spend it in a wise way considering that asking for more is unjustifiable knowing that we are not rich enough — my parents are supporting me and 2 of my siblings who are also studying.

Surrounding yourself with good people

I would say that I have good friends who has a balanced lifestyle. Studying a lot to have good grades and aiming for the best with them and having fun after the hell week of school works, quizzes, and exams.

It is fun to go out with them knowing that we influence each other in a good way sometimes not lol. They are my classmates since high school, living in the same boarding house and room so adjusting is not that difficult when we moved here. There are times that we are having an argument, but we are learning from each other and still having a good bond together.

You will always need to surround yourself with good people, environment has a huge impact on what you are going to be in the future and it might affect your decisions. So always learn choosing peers that will have an influence to you in a good way.

Learning how to deal and associate with other people

Going to college has a huge difference when you are on high school. In highschool, I have 4-6 consecutive years having the same classmates so we already know each other (in our classroom). I know how to deal with them, what they want or not. So you will learn how to balance your behavior when you are dealing with them.

In college, there are more people to deal with. New classmates, new people around in your environment. It is funny that I have a friend that I am with in the same room (boarding house) and he is literally very irresponsible with his life. I don't care about his decisions, but him, being irresponsible are affecting us. For example, having a disorganized bed (we're on a double deck) and it is affecting us. HINDI MAN LANG SIYA NAGLILINIS. Tapos kapag sinabihan namin siya pa galit at magtatampo hindi kami pinapansin. Ang mahirap pa don, siya 'yung nasa taas ko sa double deck so kapag kumain siya ng tinapay naglalalagan sakin 'yung iba. He will sleep while we are cooking, then of course, we will say that he is the one that will wash the dishes pero siya parang siya pa minsan nagtatampo. Wala na nga siyang ginagawa eh. Sorry, gigil mo 'ko.

Become financially prepared and learning how to budget everything

One thing that I realized is that budgeting is important. Setting a weekly budget will help you to save money — can you really save money on college? huh! Being a college student is expensive. We are 5 boys in house and heck, we are eating too much as expected. Imagine a half cavan of rice is not enough for us in one month. We are also buying gas (lutuan, basta gasul) and it is also expensive. So, you have to be financially prepared once the ambagan is already due.

The food is also expensive here compared in the province. But my parents told me that it is cheaper if you will compare it to Manila price. ₱25.00/ulam if it is vegetable and ₱40.00-₱60.00 for meat. There's no rice in that price. You have to buy separately for ₱10.00 per serve, but to save money, we only buy ulam and cook rice in the house.

Not to mention that it is good that I am somehow influencing my friends in tracking their expenses to know where did they spent the most for the whole week. I've been using this app called Money Manager since November 2022 and so far, it is a very good experience. I know what comes in and out to my money and learn to cut some of it for next week if I am spending too much. So far, I am spending more on food, home, and education. (home is a category for money contribution for the house, rent, and expenses in boarding house including rice, etc.

It is hard to become independent, but you will learn to embrace it

Part of adulting is learning how to become independent. Living independently is one of the things that I want to experience, but living far from my parents is hard to be honest. You will need to do all stuff by yourself like cooking and washing your clothes (although I wash my clothes in our house) but considering where I went from school, go to the boarding house, cook for the meal, and wash your clothes and uniform is exhausting. Then you will also need to do your school works after. It is tiring, but you will adapt the changes soon once you are used to it.

Everyone cannot be your friend

This is real. When we were high school, most of my classmates are my friends we are all close together. But in college, no matter move and approach you do, if they don't really want to be friend with you, they don't. Might be another type of a person is like that.

Also, there are some of my classmates who are really not in my line of interest and circle, as other people said, we haven't the same humor.

In college, make sure to choose real friends. It is hard to be alone in college and learn to befriend with each other. You also have to be more serious than before. Become enthusiastic especially if you are on engineering field.

Make sure to choose the path that you truly enjoy

As time goes by, I am learning that you should thrive and pursue your passion. I want to be engineer, but I found out that field related to finance is more on my niche and interest. I like engineering, but I am not enjoying the hardship and downs of it. So far, I am learning on how to adapt it. I really want to be engineer someday, that's why I am really pursuing it.

Don't get me wrong, I have no plans to shift my course and I am always hoping to pass in this field no matter how hard it is. But I'm also interested in finance and accounting where sometimes when I have time to think and reflect, I am thinking "if I took accounting or business administration, am I going to take this path of hardship?" I can't avoid this thought, but yeah, I am already here so I am continuing to pursue it.

What I am doing right now is trying to enjoy and embrace it.

Did you finished this blog? It is a long rant, but if you are younger than me and still on their high school, this is my advice: enjoy it because college is tough!

About the author

_{Mark Laurence, also known as Laurenceuuu and anonymous02 is a student who is currently taking a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. He is expanding his knowledge and skills by blogging where he mostly writes about productivity, digital marketing, and making money online.}

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