Studying at uni can be a really positive time for you as a young adult—even spiritual revolutionary when combined with involvement in campus ministries. Your uni years can involve forming friendships and setting a positive trajectory for the rest of your life. But the move of many universities towards more and more online learning has the potential to water down the richness of that university experience in a major way.[1]
Hybrid learning (sometimes part of an approach called the ‘flipped classroom’) can enhance the time you spend in learning in-person and offer personalised flexibility. But it must be said that often the move to hybrid and online learning has been very very ordinary. Especially if you’re just leaving school, in the process of being formed into the kind of adult you are going to be for the rest of your life (socially, spiritually, intellectually, politically), the low-contact, small-group model of university education, squeezed in around the rest of your life, is limited, basic and potentially dismal.
In the past, there were a whole lot of social currents and waves that swept you up into a uni lifestyle, including involvement in uni Christian groups. But I’m sorry to say that in the 2020s, especially if you’re not going to an elite university, it’s likely that you’ll need to be deliberate and proactive to get the most out of your uni years. If anything there are now social and psychological rips pulling you away from holistic connection and deeply transformative learning.
So young adult: how then can you make the most of your time at a hybrid-learning university?
Supplement Your Uni Experience
Plug into other clubs and societies offered by the university student association/guild; lectures, programs , excursions and groups hosted by the university; events and festivals targeted at your demographic. Find a study group or communal uni library study table.
Whether you’re a committed Christian, deconstructing, still figuring it out (or even if you’re not a Christian at all), university Christian groups are really worthwhile on so many levels: deepening your walk with the Lord and equipping you for service; giving you permission to voice your doubts and ask hard questions; connecting you with a whole lot of people across churches, denominations, year groups and faculties. Christian groups are some of the most active and high-participation groups on campus. They don’t merely offer entertainment, parties, local restaurant discount cards or individualistic career or lifestyle benefits; they are not merely academic or merely social: they build loving, thoughtful, joyful, genuine, fun, purposeful community.
Build a Routine of Being on Campus and in the Community
Don’t just arrive at uni for your lectures, classes, tutorials and labs. Arrive early; hang around. If there’s a choice between online or in-person attendance, opt for in-person. Set some regular time to study at the library or one of the university cafés. Maybe change your gym membership to the uni gym.
And it’s not just about being on the university property. Many cities and towns have social spaces beyond the university itself that are commonly used by young adults: parks, libraries, noodle bars, church drop in/hang spaces, museums, music venues and so on. Build in some habits to being around others—not just at home and with close friends, but around strangers, acquaintances, classmates, fellow humans.
Take Risks to Form New Relationships
We are commanded to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. There are plenty of neighbours all around us, whom we could love in big and small ways! This means going beyond what’s easy and familiar. Learn the art and joy of building a network of acquaintances, not just close friends. It will enrich your life in all sort of ways: learning new things about the world—even simply discovering new food and hobbies; having people you can visit in different towns, cities, states and countries later on; opening up future employment opportunities; meeting potential romantic partners; having people to help you, say, if you need to move house, and people whom you can help in return; people with whom you can share your faith in Jesus—and perhaps help lead to start trusting Christ as well. Don’t limit yourself to those you knew from school, those of the same sex, ethnicity, church, denomination, religion, age and so on.
If you are a gatherer, organiser, motivator in your friendship groups, then you can help those around you. You can be proactive in opening up your group’s plans to include others. Don’t let your gang be entirley exclusive and elite: think about how you can be welcoming and hospitable to new people. Although it’s a bit different having new people in the mix, in the end it is a case of the more the merrier.
Establish These as Long-Term Habits
This isn’t just about the orientation week and the first month of semester. These kinds of practices and commitments will give more and more value the more steadily you chip away at them. Visiting one or two events hosted by the campus Christian group might not be all that impressive to you; but giving a good go of it for a whole semester will almost certainly be worth your while. Joining a library study table or group of classmates for falafel for just one week might be a bit awkward; but give it regular time and you’ll slowly build up familiarity, in-jokes and affection for more and more of these random fellow students.
Don’t let the stress of those first exams, the disruption caused by the mid-semester break, the colder weather, or an uncomfortable conversational moment with somebody get in the way. Maybe it’s kind of weird, but you could think of it as social hygiene or social fitness: the benefit comes from repetition.
Welcome Encouragements and Coaching from Others
It can be quite easy to drift through uni-in-your-bedroom and so end up getting a whole let less out of this phase of life. And then you’ve graduated and that’s that. I understand that it’s not a priority for everyone. But it’s pity when disengagement isn’t the result of prayerful thought, but just a default. It is really worth thinking about how you are going to approach the early years of your adult life to the glory of God. And in our current tertiary education landscape, you’ll have to self-consciously think about it more than your parents did.
[1] Uni life has been steadily changing for decades, for a complex mix of reasons, not all under the control of anyone, even those who run the universities. This has meant that bit by bit, the experience at uni can be more corporate, functional, impersonal, ‘transactional’. And then change sped up with the pandemic. Ever since the COVID-19 lockdowns, many universities have made a major strategic pivot towards hybrid-learning models, making substantial online learning components and online courses the norm. There are some good reasons for this, but clearly money is also a big part of it. It can be a lot cheaper to remove large-group and in-person teaching and replace it with online recorded content.
