Student life can get so hectic, sometimes it feels like there’s no time to pick up a new hobby. But with Term 3 finally coming to a close, perhaps now is the perfect time to discover a new interest. Read this post to discover the different ways in which hobbies can enhance your student life.
Get Moving After Exam Season
A normal exam season can involve hours of staring at a laptop or re-reading notes in an attempt to revise. Combine that with this year’s online learning, where we’ve rarely had to move from our homes, and you might be feeling a little sick of sittingstill! Hobbies can be a brilliant way to shake off sedentary student life. With the weather steadily improving, it’s so refreshing to make the most of the outdoors. If you’re struggling to find a reason to get outside, hobbies can help provide a focus! But if that’s not your thing, there are plenty of indoor activities to get you away from your work, such as yoga or hula hooping.
Looking for a hobby to get moving after exams? Try hula hooping, roller skating, skipping, dancing, jogging, geocaching, wild swimming, yoga, or collecting sea glass!
Engage Your Creativity!
Although more and more degrees are offering creative options for assessment, getting creative for a grade can often feel really restrictive. Hobbies can help you flex the creative side of your brain that might be unused in your studies. Personally, I really enjoy having creative hobbies that feel separated from my university work. They help me switch off my academic brain by engaging with something completely different, letting me relax away from university life!
Want to get creative with your hobbies? Try crocheting, embroidery, cooking, baking, DJing, reading, drawing, playing an instrument, or nail art!
Learn Something New – Without Getting Marked
Students learn new things almost every day, meaning we’re never short of new information to ingest. However, a lot of these new facts or skills are learnt in order to achieve a grade, rather than to broaden our minds. Learning a completely new skill helps keep our brains active and strong, and doing it only for yourself is a great way to separate learning from (occasionally dull) university work. And you never know, your new skill might just come in handy for your next assessment!
Need ideas for a new skill? Try juggling, card tricks, language learning, jewellery making, calligraphy, astronomy, origami, bird watching, coding, or chess!
Be Unapologetically Bad
Does university and work make you feel like you’re always striving for a perfect grade and positive feedback? Hobbies can provide a break from a feeling of constant academic drive for success. Let yourself be unapologetically bad at your hobbies! Although it might seem counter-intuitive, being brilliantly terrible at a hobby can actually take a lot of practice. Ever had a friend that’s created a pretty necklace or a painting, and then immediately decided to set up an Etsy shop? Transforming a hobby into a money-making scheme immediately adds a pressure to be consistently successful in your extra-curriculars. Instead, try using hobbies as an outlet where you can remove any expectations of success, and allow yourself to play and have fun without any hope of eventually improving.
Want an activity where you can be unapologetically terrible? Try painting, flower pressing, at-home pottery, creative writing, scrapbooking, singing, playing video games on ‘Easy’, or colouring!
What new hobby would you try next? Tweet us at @warwicklibrary, email us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk, or leave a comment below.
by Hannah Filer
The Study Blog 