By your early 20s, you are supposed to know who you are and where you are going.
At least, that is what it feels like. There is an unspoken expectation that, by this point, the path should be clear. Your major should be chosen with confidence, a future career plan loosely mapped out, a version of yourself that, at least on paper, feels stable and intentional. But for most of us at LUSEM, reality looks far less linear.
Most students here are in their twenties, having arrived by very different routes. Some came straight from high school, many after one or two gap years, and others switched programs halfway through, choosing to start over rather than force themselves to finish something that no longer fit. Despite these varied paths, it is hard not to compare.
That person is younger than me and already so far ahead, why did I not start earlier?
That person is excelling in this class and I am barely keeping up.
That person traveled the world before studying. Should I have done that instead?
That person seems to have their life together, and I am still struggling to stick to a routine.
These are all questions many students quietly ask themselves, myself included. Comparison becomes almost automatic when everyone around you seems to be moving with purpose, even if you know, logically, that appearances rarely tell the full story.
One of the hardest parts of being surrounded by so many driven and talented people is how easy it becomes to reduce ourselves, and everyone else for that matter, to single traits. We compare our weakest moments to someone else’s strongest ones without realizing it. It is easy to look at one person’s academic confidence and forget that they might be struggling socially. To admire someone’s discipline without seeing the anxiety that fuels it, or envy someone’s independence without knowing how lonely it feels.
When that strength does not happen to be ours, it becomes a mirror for everything we think we are lacking. Our own curiosity and creativity fade into the background because they do not shine as visibly. This type of selective comparison builds pressure quietly.
Instead of asking whether we are growing as a person, we ask whether we are measuring up, fixating on the one area where someone else seems ahead. Over time, this creates the feeling that something must be wrong with us, when we are simply looking at ourselves from the wrong angle.
Starting university itself already feels like a form of reinvention. Living on your own, many for the first time, means adjusting to responsibilities that once belonged to someone else. Suddenly, there is no one reminding you to eat properly, do your laundry, or manage your finances. You realize quickly that you are unable to spend all your CSN on fun things and that some of it has to be put aside for the more ‘grown up’ responsibilities, like paying rent, groceries, and the very unglamorous task of meal-prepping lunches for the week.
Adulthood slowly creeps in through small, mundane decisions. Beyond these surface level requirements, there might even be the realization that the plan you once trusted may no longer be working. For some, it may be a more quiet realization. A lecture you once found exciting now feels heavy, or maybe the degree you worked toward for years suddenly brings more anxiety than motivation.
You might still be performing well on paper, but internally something feels misaligned. Others might experience a more dramatic break, like failing a course, burning out, or finally admitting to themselves that the future they imagined does not feel like their own anymore.
Starting over at this age comes with less applause and certainty. It often means explaining your decision to friends and family or sitting in a new classroom surrounded by people who seem younger, more confident, or more certain than you feel. It means letting go of labels that you once identified with: the high achiever, the one who always knew what they wanted. Losing the version of yourself you thought you would become and the time and energy you invested in a dream that did not survive reality is frustrating.
But that time was not for nothing.
Without the planned script, you are forced to redefine your success on your own terms in the present, not the terms you set long ago. Progress is about tolerating uncertainty and being a beginner, asking different questions, and building a version of yourself that is not tied to a single outcome. Starting over does not mean erasing who you were, but allowing that version of you to evolve.
For many students, the most surprising part of starting over is what they gain from it. For me, the experience I imagined at LUSEM has not been the one I have had. I have walked out of exams feeling overwhelmed as those around me typed profusely, convinced I had missed something everyone else seemed to understand. I have studied with friends only to end up sitting alone when I realized the depth of detail they seemed to grasp felt far beyond my own.
And yet, learning to sit with that discomfort has taught me more about myself than certainty ever could. Maybe that is the part we do not talk about enough; that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do in your 20s is not sticking to the plan, but choosing to change it.
