Wondering what the best hobbies to pick up in college are? If you’re a more artistic person, learning to paint or sculpt would be a good idea. However, if you’re someone who enjoys tech, learning to code might be ideal.
Discussed below are some of the best hobbies you could pick up.
Improve Your Fitness
College can be depressing. After all, you’re dealing with the mounting stress of exams and assignments. Focusing on improving your physique could be the mental boost you need.
Most campuses have gyms, so getting fit would be easy. If you don’t want to go to the gym, that’s alright. You could work out from the comfort of your dorm. Try out Pilates. All you need is a yoga mat.
Improving your fitness would mean eating cleaner. A clean diet can positively affect the way you think. In turn, you would be able to study better.
Try Out a New Sport
There probably is a sport you’ve always been interested in but were too afraid to try. Maybe your school has a team for it? If you practice and get good enough, you could join it.
Start a Blog
Life as a college student is exciting. Many people would be interested in your life. Create a blog to journal how your day was. The blog would be like your diary, so you could vent however much you like.
Hopefully, your blog becomes popular. You would be able to start earning from it.
Also, you could slowly divert into making vlogs. You don’t need me to tell you that a YouTube channel would be an excellent means of making additional income.
As you can imagine, if you want your website or YouTube channel to become successful, you would need to invest in them. Whether you do this or not is up to you.
Learn to play an instrument
Learning to play a musical instrument would help you creatively express yourself.
If you have any friends that play instruments, you could start a band with them. Eventually, you could get good enough to play local gigs and make extra cash.
What’s excellent about universities is that they have a lot of student resources. You don’t need to practice alone in your dorm. Your school probably has a teacher and a club to help you.
Be the Next Bob Ross
Just like learning a musical instrument would help you express yourself, painting would help as well.
If you’re not the best artist at first, that’s okay. Practice makes perfect. You could also try knitting or crafting. They require much less skill to master. You could argue that being good at knitting is all about being patient.
You probably don’t have much cash as a college student. You don’t have to splurge on expensive art supplies. Visiting your local dollar store would be fine.
Hopefully, your college has art courses you could take too.
Once you’re good enough, you could sell whatever you’ve made on platforms like Etsy.
Learn Some New Recipes
On a scale of 1-10, how skilled of a cook are you? If you’re not the best chef, your future self would appreciate you learning how to cook.
We mentioned you could start a blog earlier. If you get good at cooking, your blog could focus on the food you make.
Here’s the deal:
Campuses are strict about the appliances they let into dorms. You’ll probably only be allowed to have a couple of small appliances that don’t have open heating elements. You’ll have to do most of your cooking in the communal kitchen.
Focus on Your social media
Like most college kids, you probably have several social media accounts. Why not spend time cultivating your image online? This could help you gain more followers and likes, which anyone would appreciate. But also, it could help with future jobs.
When employers look for applicants, they usually check out their social media accounts. If they see an account with engaging, informative content, they would be more interested.
Moreover, you could use your social media presence for activism. There may be a cause you particularly like.
Make Your Candles
The above hobbies are great, but they’re pretty standard. You might be interested in taking up a unique hobby. Candle-making would be ideal. You could infuse the candles with essential oils and get creative.
Although you might not think it, there are many tutorials on candle making. The supplies for it aren’t that expensive either.
Be a Coder
Learning to code is an excellent way to spend your time. The skill would be a great way to make extra money too. Of course, it would also look tempting on your resume.
Once you know how to code, you could develop your own programs and apps. This would be a fun way to spend your time.
From all the hobbies on our list, you would find the most resources if you’re trying to learn to code.
Be a Pro-Gamer
You probably spend your free time gaming. If there’s a game you enjoy, you could try competitively playing it. Practice makes perfect. You could soon sign-up for tournaments.
Should You Have a Hobby in College?
The above suggestions would make great hobbies. However, ask yourself if college is the right time to dive into learning to make candles, code, or paint. These skills are helpful but being an undergrad student is hard. You’ll likely be stressed with exams and assignments. The little time you have should be used to meet new people instead of being in your dorm.
Then again, having a hobby would be a form of self-care. You would feel better spending time doing something that you enjoy. What’s more, many of the activities we discussed would help with your future.
If the degree you’re doing is not that demanding, you would have a fair amount of free time. If so, definitely look into one of the activities we mentioned.
How to Choose a Hobby?
There are so many hobbies you could get into. You might have no idea which of them to invest your time in. Let’s talk about which activity would be suitable for you.
If you’re a more creative person, you should try painting, crafting, or making candles. You may not have the most patience, so definitely stay away from knitting. As you can imagine, though, you would need a lot of practice to become a skilled painter. If you don’t think you can invest the time to see results, it would be best to stay away.
An activity that’s on the creative side but doesn’t involve getting your hands dirty would be learning to play an instrument. Most likely, your university has the resources to help.
If you want to improve your health, spending time trying to get fit might be a good idea. Your campus probably has a gym. You could also improve your fitness if you take up a sport. Sports are also great ways to learn how to work as a team.
Maybe you’re someone who enjoys tech? Learning to code would be brilliant. You could make quite a bit of cash on the side. As mentioned, knowing how to code would look great on your CV as well.
Final Thoughts
There are many activities you could take up in college. Which ones you take up would depend on the type of person you are.
If you’re doing a challenging degree and don’t have much time to spend, make sure you balance focusing on your hobby and the rest of your responsibilities.
Most of the options we discussed aren’t just great ways to spend time, but they could also help you make extra cash.
Some recreations you could get into are:
- Getting fit
- A new sport
- Candle-making
- Making art
- Coding