Throughout my high school senior year, my teachers kept iterating the phrase “University is going to be difficult, so start preparing for all the stress”. College students also describe their experience as “staying up late at night to either finish a paper or study for a midterm”. Currently, I have been studying at UBC for the past two months, and I’m not gonna lie, I have spent a couple late nights writing up a paper or studying for an upcoming exam. At this point, all I can ask is: why is the academia so stressful?

There are a few stigmas about why university life is so stressful. Some people say that universities are irksome because they are trying to separate the students that procrastinate and fool around, and those that study hard and put all their effort into studying. On the other hand, others say that university is nerve-wracking because it is preparing you for the also aggravating and time consuming life of having a full-time job. Basically, university is seen as a filter for bad and good apples or a boot-camp that is supposed to toughen you up for future careers.

Recently, I have learned that the university is made to be a struggle sometimes for a good reason. Dr. Christopher Erickson mentioned during one of his political science lecture that exams are built to test your method of preparing for a situation. The tests that every student sweats over is made to provide feedback on your style of getting ready for an exam, so you can reassess whether you are taking the right approach to the dilemma or not. Dr. Moberley Luger also said, “Things may seem difficult, but it’s going to be okay.” in response to her students worrying about her upcoming exam. Furthermore, Dr. Kerry Greer assured her students after they received their exam results that, “Your grades are only going to go up from here.”. In essence, we’re being taught to slowly solve our conditions and dilemmas, not being filtered or hardened.

Despite the obstacles UBC has set up for me, I believe that I am actually learning something new everyday. My professors are teaching me more than their field of expertise, but life lessons and ways of evaluating predicaments, which I would argue are just as important as my studies. Am I enrolled in university just for the education from my lectures discussions? I would say that I am learning so much more from the different people I have met here.

Recently, I’ve started reading Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, a set of memoirs about the author’s return back to his homeland, Sri Lanka, after staying away for so many years in Canada. One of the larger themes in the book is identity, especially when there’s a disparity. As person who has three different citizenships, identity became a huge struggle and conflict growing up.

In Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan, Dutch, Canadian, had to deal with the problem of going back to Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as he calls it, despite not having lived there in so long. This caused him to be treated like a foreigner, despite the country being his homeland. Furthermore, some aspects of the land and his family seemed different to him, giving Michael this alienated feeling that made him wonder if he can be considered to be from Sri Lanka.

It was as if he was this odd black sheep in a herd of white sheep. This perception of estrangement is one that I can deeply relate to considering my background.

Growing up as a Jordanian-Taiwanese-Canadian, I found it pretty difficult trying to learn and develop in Jordan or Taiwan. Despite living in both countries for years, most people treated me like a foreigner because I didn’t have the aura or act the social norms of either of those places.

A big part of how I view myself is both of Arabian and Far Eastern, because I have taken on the cultures of both areas. Even though I could speak Arabic or Mandarin and knew how Jordan and Taiwan functioned, people saw me as a peculiar alien. Although I may be an outlier to the locals of Jordan or Taiwan, I still believe that my roots lie in both places and proudly take on both nations as my identity.

I feel like I can trace back to Michael Ondaatje’s emotions of all the new changes in Sri Lanka after coming back, because I’m experiencing that anxiety as well. When I finally travel back to Jordan and Taiwan, the places where I spent most of my life, after a year in Canada, will the country be any different? Will I still be able to understand how the culture works? What new changes will there be and will I be ready to see them? Will I be able to see Jordan or Taiwan the same way again with the newfound knowledge I’ve gained through university? Most importantly, will I still be able to identity myself as Jordan and Taiwanese? These are the questions I have been pondering as I read through Running in the Family, a book that truly tugs at my heartstrings.