Research Blog #14: My Story

Over the course of the semester my project has evolved a lot. At first, I knew I wanted to do something that had to do with comparing student life to academic life in a college environment. The main reason for this is that I, myself have been struggling to find a good balance between the two. Although I picked that for my topic, it was very vague and I was unsure of how to relate these two lifestyles enough for a whole research paper. Then, my professor suggested I use "happiness" as my topic and relate college to happiness. In the beginning I didn't really think much of it and didn't think I really wanted to go in that direction with my paper, but then I started to research that topic a little bit. Some of the information I found was actually really interesting and that's when I realized that this is what I wanted to base my project on. My main trouble with writing this paper, however, was actually sitting down and focusing on doing my work. There were so many other distractions all the time that made it very hard for me to get things done on time. It even got to the point a few times where I actually did my paper after I thought I might actually fail the course if I didn't keep up. Anyway, with my research topic, there is a debate that essentially money either can buy happiness, or that it can't. Some economists feel that it is more important for students to go to college and focus solely on their academics so that they can later get a good high paying job with a set career, and that will make them happy. But others feel that students should be able to have fun in college and do what they want because "friendship and love is ultimately what trumps money and status" and there is more to life than money. After completing all of my research, I came to the conclusion that it is better for students to "have fun" in college and do what they want. Academics are important, but as long as the student knows what it is that they want to do with their life, they can create a nice balance for themselves between their academic and social lives. This would also decrease a lot of stress on students and make them happier in the end. There’s no point in going through life if you hate what you do, so live your life to the fullest and have fun in doing so.