"Life Isn't About Finding Yourself. Life is About Creating Yourself."

As a scholar, the prospect of attending university was one filled with great excitement and enthusiasm. After spending almost twelve years in a rigorous school system, which allowed little room for creativity or individuality (the colour of our underwear was regulated), I longed to attend university, a world which numerous brochures and pamphlets from institutions across the country described as the period of my life that would be filled with possibility. I was eager to steer my future down the right path, to leave home and to assert my independence but most of all, I yearned to find myself.
After almost a year on “my own”, I like many other first year and sometimes even masters’ students at university, feel that this endeavour has been somewhat futile - I still do not know who I am. At times I think that it is unfair of me demand an answer to such a simple yet complex question, whereas at other times I’m perplexed as to how I still have not managed crack this question. To put it simply, I am more confused now than ever before. I no longer know what I would like to do with my life and as such regularly consider switching majors, dropping and picking up subjects and sometimes even dropping out of university as a whole.
Academics aside, I am well aware that blinded by the desire to fit, I haven’t always been true to myself. While I realise that throughout our lives, we are all influenced by others, I can’t help but wonder whether the way in which I carry myself, my diction of choice or taste in music mirrors that of my friends or whether it reflects who I really am.
My friend Charmaine, regrets that she allowed herself to be swayed by the desires of her friends to the point where she could no longer recognise herself: “I wish I had taken time to explore my talents. I wish I hadn’t gone along with all group activities; I partied a lot in the first semester and went along with what everyone else did instead of doing what I enjoyed. I focused too much on new things and in the process forgot who I was and what I enjoyed,” she says when speaking of her regrets as a first year student.
I am certain that like Charmaine and I there are billions of students who go through their first or even final years at a tertiary institution hoping that their quest for knowledge will also lead them down the path of self-discovery. Oftentimes, this simply isn’t the case. While students may find themselves doing the unexpected are they really finding themselves or are they just realising the stereotypes associated with students?
It is only natural for us to lose ourselves during transitive periods in our lives and university signifies that all important transition from childhood to adulthood. Perhaps it would be wiser if instead of promising hordes that they will embark on a journey of self discovery and ultimately find themselves, university’s should rather say that among other things, they provide students with the platform to create themselves, which, in time will see them leaving their mark on the world.