You Can Be a Better Student with Stoicism
College. The big shebang that everyone says will be the place that will guarantee success in life. As debatable as that statement may be, college can have a profound change on and in one’s life.
Now the title of this article may have you wondering, “how exactly does the ancient philosophy of Stoicism relate to modern post-secondary education?” There are three ways that the philosophy connects to college: (1) you can widen your range of knowledge; (2) you can learn about who you are and how you act in varying situations; and (3) you can build good habits and develop virtues needed for a good and meaningful life.
Note: The following is aimed towards young adults who have just graduated high school and are looking to attain a higher education. While college students vary in ages (my best friend in university is 42), most students I have come across first came to college when they were 18–20 years old.
College and Stoicism
Widening Your Knowledge
The philosophy of Stoicism is built upon 3 disciplines: perception; action, and will. As perception is how one see’s the world, a way to improve one’s perception is to choose wise impressions and get information from reputable sources. College is a place where you can do that.
In college, you’re taught how to research, you read textbooks, and are also often required to use journal databases to cite your essays and papers (looking at you, APA citation manual). Although college can be expensive (sometimes too expensive if you ask me), the things you can learn from the books, faculty, staff, and other students are immense. You can gain new insights and perspectives on things you once only had one perspective on; this give you the ability to make and have more informed decisions and opinions.
Learning About Yourself
One aspect of College is that the stakes are not as high as they would be if you were in the real-real world (yes, one can consider college to be in the real world, but it’s more of a microcosm of it); faculty is more understanding of things, campus police may be more lenient (college/university-dependent), and the cost of your actions may not be as severe if you run into trouble. Because of this, college is a place where you can discover who you are: the things you like and don’t like; the kind of person you want to be; you can afford to make some mistakes (e.g., drinking too much and failing a test the next day) and still be able to continue on with little negative consequences.
Another aspect of this discovering of the self is the healing of the mind. College is hard on the body and mind, and some students didn’t come to college with a perfect family. Among the therapy and counseling community, methods such as exposure therapy are used to remedy and heal certain anxieties and mental health disorders; you’re essentially exposing yourself to a little bit of the source of anxiety and getting comfortable to a point where if you happen to deal with something that triggers that anxiety, it’s more manageable.
Note: If you’re considering therapy and you’re a college student, I highly recommend you check out your campus’ counseling/therapy resources. Most colleges/universities have you pay for counseling/therapy as a part of your medical fee on your tuition; that price is much cheaper than having to pay thousands of dollars for therapy once you’ve graduated and are in real world.
It’s the same with college. Here, you can find out how you respond to certain situations such as confrontation, loss, fear, injustice, and much more. As aforementioned, the stakes here can be low: the loss of a friendship; the failure of a test; a brief sickness or headache; in the real world, things such as your house, long-term finances, or maybe even the custody of your kids are at stake. College is a place where you can work on yourself, temper your mind and body and set yourself on the course of being the best you can be, all before the bar is raised even further upon graduation.
Good Habit and Virtue-Building
Similar to the previous point, because the stakes in college aren’t as high, you can use it as a place to build good habits and develop virtues for living a good and meaningful life.
With this, you’re essentially starting out small and working on the simple things that will help cultivate the drive needed to manage the big things. In the same way a credit card company won’t hand you a large line of credit when you get your first credit car, your body isn’t going to just give you all the disciple and effort needed to build a successful life. You’re going to have to train and cultivate those parts of you that are disciplined, enduring, and virtuous; like with exposure therapy, in college, you’re given small opportunities to do just that, whether it be time management, budgeting the snack points on your cafeteria card, or even helping another classmate with a difficult math problem. These are small things, but they’ll help build the wherewithal needed to do things such as starting a business, budgeting your income, paying your mortgage and bills, taking care of and protecting your family, or even remaining strong and resilient when the troubles and vileness of life attack from left, right, and center.
So we now arrive the point where we see how college connects to aspects of Stoic philosophy. You, the reader, however, may ask, “how does this philosophy actually better my college career? Like the title posits, how does Stoicism make me more successful in college?” As Stoicism’s overarching goal is to provide balance to the adherer amid a chaotic life, its basic foundations provide a path that a student can use to improve their college experience
Improving your College Experience
College if used, correctly, can be a place where you can improve yourself and become a person that is ready to take on what the world has in store. College and its Stoic connections don’t just end at these previously-stated points. In fact, Stoicism can be used to improve your college experience, namely in the use of the philosophy’s foundations: the Disciplines of Stoicism; and the Chief Virtues.
Stoic Disciplines — Perception
As I briefly mentioned, perception is how we choose to interpret the external world. Like a photograph, it can — to the best of its ability, though that’s philosophical discussion for another article — reflect the true nature of the world, or it can be besmirched with things that cause the photograph to not reflect the world in an accurate manner. In using the discipline of perception, you can practice critically analyzing the work you’re doing and the material you’re studying. The world is not black and white, and by conducting critical thought, analysis, and gathering objective information, you can ensure that your perception of the world or field of study is more objective and accurate.
Stoic Disciplines — Action
The discipline of action is how we choose to act in the external world, where we can either increase our section of the world’s harmony or disharmony (in Stoicism, everything is connected, working together in harmony to function properly. Think how if your body is sick, it is in disharmony, due to some part not working correctly.). This discipline helps to ask and answer the following question: what kind of person do I want to be? As a college student, you can use the discipline of action by joining study groups, being a productive student, doing volunteer work, or anything that makes your sphere of influence better. You don’t have to be a complete saint, but doing things that are helpful around your community will improve it, you, and your college experience.
Stoic Disciplines — Will
The discipline of will is how we choose to view and react to events that are outside of our control and happen to us. How this differs from the discipline of action is that with these events under the “Will” category, we cannot control what is happening. Here is a personal anecdote to further explain this concept.
In 2021, I had the honor (I’m choosing to view this with a shift of perception) of enduring Winter Storm Uri, officially known as the February 13–17, 2021 North American Winter Storm. I was in Texas at the time, a state that was grossly unprepared for what the storm would bring. Power outages affected the whole state, and many universities had to cancel in-person classes until the problem was fixed. My university of was one of them. However, not only did I have to deal with the power outage and falling snow, the city I was in, due to a chemical contamination issue, was under a no-drink/no-cook/no-bathe advisory. In spite of all this, I and the students who were taking online classes still had assignments that needed to be submitted. I couldn’t control the storm, outages, the water crisis, nor the professors’ lack of extension-giving. It was all out of my control.
So what did I do? I found a place on campus that had power, warm shelter, and fresh water, sat down, and worked on my assignments. I realized I still had a choice as to what I could do. Sure, I could waste that time sulking about the situation and assignments, or I could, despite my ever-increasing annoyance towards the situation, get the work done. I chose to do the latter.
And it’s in this last part of the anecdote that we can see the discipline of will. I couldn’t control what was happening around me. What I could control, however, was how I responded to the situation.
Now of course, things won’t always be this extreme (the storm, even for the area I was in, was considered a once-in-a-century storm). It may just be that your professors give you a ton of assignments, such that you have no time to relax except for sleeping. Maybe the cafeteria was supposed to be serving your favorite mac-and-cheese and instead chose to serve brussels sprouts. What do you do, how do you react?
Chief Virtues — Wisdom
Stoicism regards virtue as the way to achieve eudaimonia — “true” happiness. While the philosophy posits many valuable virtues, it holds four virtues as the chief virtues — the most important: wisdom; courage; justice; and temperance. It’s these four virtues that can help improve your college experience and with work, make you a more successful student.
The virtue of wisdom is about taking the time to think about a situation and making the choice that is good, right, and just (as can be). Let’s say a friend that you share a class with asks you to give them the answers to a few math problems that he doesn’t know how to solve. Telling him the answers while the isn’t looking would be quick, but if he caught you, you’d get in trouble for just giving away the answers. In practicing the virtue of wisdom, you would look that facets of the situation, the effects of your actions, and then arrive at a decision. In this case, since he doesn’t know how to solve the problems, you can teach him to the math equations and how to solve those problems, be it during or after the class. In doing so, you didn’t sacrifice your personal integrity and equipped someone with the skills to continue learning on their own. As the saying goes, “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”
Chief Virtues — Courage
Next of the virtues is courage, being able to do what is right in spite of the emotions you feel or what other people feel, believe, think, or do. Let’s say your significant other lets you drive their car to class for the day. On the way home you accidentally get a scratch on their car. You know that they’ll most likely be mad at you for scratching their car, and you’re afraid of the potential repercussions. So what do you do?
In using the virtue of courage, you’ll own up to your mistake. You can’t control how the situation will turn out or how they’ll react. You only have control over the reaction, choices, and decisions you make. In this case, telling them what happened and accepting the consequences.
It’s easier said than done of course, but in practicing little things like owning up to your mistakes, you can build up your ability to exercise courage when the stakes are high and your choice has long-term consequences.
Chief Virtues —Justice
Virtue #3 is that of justice — doing what is right, regardless if you’re the one doing it alone or no one is watching. Let’s say your best friend comes to you asking for a place to stay because they’ve left their abusive partner or were assaulted. The just thing to do is to take them in, provide the support you can, and aid them in healing, recovery, and how they choose to move forward. You might be scared of how the situation will affect you, but this is where you have the ability to exercise the virtue of courage and make the just decision.
As a scenario to think about, let’s say you’re working a campus job as an information technology (IT) assistant. You find out that your coworker found a way to view their professor’s grading sheets and change his grades. What do you do?
Chief Virtues — Temperance
The last of the Chief Virtues is temperance — the virtue of self-control, discipline, and moderation. Stoicism posits the concept of balance — not too little, not too much. And it’s here that situations in college provide the opportunity to practice this virtue:
- Choosing to save your limited snack points instead of spending them on a coffee that you don’t need.
- Finishing a paper that’s due in a couple of days instead of spending the evening bar hopping with your friends. Note: Neither of these options are bad, but as a reminder, you’re in and paying for college to earn a degree.
- Choosing to stick with a safe diet, budget, or workout regimen that you created.
- Deciding against having a drink at a party because you are the designated driver (I’ll stress for anyone who reads this, especially college students: don’t drink and drive).
- Choosing to not flirt with an attractive person while you’re in a relationship due to feeling lonely.
Often, making decisions that will help improve your college experience and allow you to get the most out of your education will require you to make some sacrifices, ones that will require you to have the discipline and self-control had within the virtue of temperance.
It is through the wielding of these disciplines and virtues that a student has the ability to better their college experience and have a more successful education. Whether you’re an undergraduate or graduate student, using these aspects of Stoic philosophy can guide you to improving your education experience, cultivate the qualities of a highly successful student, and building the habits needed for a fruitful, successful, and meaningful life.
College can be difficult, and requires dedication, discipline, and maturity to make it through. Stoicism provides the tools to realize the opportunities for success, development, that college has, and if one seizes them, can become students and people of success.
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