#studyinspo — Much Ado About Nothing
I remember perfectly when I first heard about the #studyinspo phenomenon. It was 3 years ago, in the summer of my sophomore year. Mid-July came grey, cold, and slow, and I had already grown bored of what seemed to be endless summer freedom. I was meeting one of my friends for coffee and cake in a new cool place (#vegan #fruitsmoothy #healthylife), and she was the one to expose me to this new trend. She had been to a stationary store just before meeting me, and there she had bought a couple of Stabilos point-88 pens, and…*drumroll*…a moleskine.
I was impressed with the spoils, especially the beautiful, simple, basic — yet amazingly expensive — moleskine.
“What are you planning to do with all these things?”, I asked her.
“Well, you see, I’m gonna start a bullet journal”, she said, and she must have seen my look of confusion, for she elaborated. She showed me the amazing tags there were on Tumblr about bullet journals, and then proceeded to explain to me #studyinspo and #studyblr.
I was sold. Everything looked so pretty, so #aesthetic, so #mindfulness. The moment I got home I started doing my own “research”. I got utterly lost in scrolling down the pages, following blogs, browsing Pinterest, all that good stuff. Next morning, I was starting my own bullet journal. However, a couple days later, I abandoned the project till the beginning of the school year, since, in my idle summer days, I had literally nothing to do, and, hence, nothing to write about in my beautiful, new, pristine journal.
And when the classes began I struck again. I made the prettiest bullet journal I could, and I tried, at least in the very beginning, to have positive study attitudes like the ones the study inspiration blogs preached about. Not even once had I dreamt of taking my notes in such a beautiful, but time-consuming, way as the ones found under the tags. But I still tried to stick to the rest of the philosophy: study hard, drink a lot of water, treasure your bullet journal, be motivated, go to class, take notes, review, etc. All of which are good practices for any student.
But as the term progressed, things began to get more stressful. Labs, projects, assignments, and exams sprouted everywhere, there were days I was at uni from 10 till 12. I just couldn’t keep up with my good intentions.
And then a kind of frustration grew on me. Cuz I couldn’t keep up with a movement that I found so wholesome and, a priori, useful. Cuz I still could see how everyone else managed to keep up. And then I started to realize some things:
1. Most of the blogs I followed were high schoolers, not uni students.
2. Almost all the uni students I did follow were majoring in literature, philosophy or history, very few in science (and not even one in my field, biology).
3. Not everyone had the same circumstances. My 4 years at uni were full of tight timetables, labs, projects that had to be done in a week, a whole month of exams at the end of each term, and generally, an ill-distributed work load.
In the end, I realized that this phenomenon was not for me; it didn’t suit my personal needs. So, I dropped it. I unfollowed most of the blogs, I stopped browsing the tags and I stopped putting aesthetical pressure on my study life. And it worked for me.
I have some issues with the #studyinspo movement, but overall, I think it can be very positive in early phases such as middle school or high school. It does have some important values and it can certainly be motivation fuel. But in my own personal view, it can focus too much on the looks. I find that making pretty, cute, perfectly organized notes is wasting your time. Time that you could use on actually studying, or on finishing assignments, doing other stuff like sports, learning an instrument, reading, or even relaxing (a thing so needed for a healthy student life).
So, unless you plan to adopt this as your hobby, I would recommend not getting into the #studyinspo void, or at least if you do, not to take it too seriously.
