One of the hardest and somewhat unexpected changes I experienced upon going off to college is the lack of time I have to be alone and think introspectively. All three years I have been at Cal Poly I have shared a bedroom with three other guys. At first in the dorms, and now in a house that I share with seven other guys. The social benefits have been awesome as I am essentially hanging out with my friends at all times of the day. However at the same time, I literally never get time to just be by myself. This came as a big transition to me as I have only ever had my own bedroom growing up and lived as an only child essentially after my sister moved away for college when I was a freshman in high school. For my self intervention, I tried to block off at least 30 minutes each day to simply get outside and be alone. I have a beautiful backyard here in SLO and wanted to take advantage by making sure I had at least a little bit of time each day to meditate and reflect on whatever was going on in my life at that moment. Throughout my time growing up, I have found time spent like this to be super beneficial and productive as it allows for time to step back and narrow my focus on what is really important. Especially as the quarter is winding down, I thought this would really help me out between these week 9 midterms and quizzes. So, here is how it went. It rained three of the six days I was attempting this practice, so that kind of killed my idealistic view of how this week was going to go. However I was still able to make it work by playing some music and closing my door to my room at least once each day. I found this time to be super constructive and a nice change of pace to the day to day school thinking. The only unfortunate part was that at any given moment the peace of this exercise had the possibility of any of my roommates getting home from class and walking in. I know you cant really blame someone for walking into their own room, however this exercise really made me realize how precious time alone really is. This is something I will continue to try and practice whenever my mind feels like it needs to take a step back from the rigor of school as the benefits are really immediate and profound.
Colin Borchardt
