This post reflects general themes from clinical experience and does not describe any individual client.
There’s a moment in fetch when the owner throws the ball and says “sit.” The dog is ready. Shuffling his feet, barely holding still, every instinct pointed toward that ball in the distance. He knows it’s coming. He just has to wait for the word.
That’s a lot of what college feels like. You’re ready. The energy is there. And then someone finally says go, and suddenly you’re looking at a wide-open field with about forty balls in it, and nobody told you which one to chase.
Is the anxiety you’re feeling in college normal?
Yes. And it makes sense.
For the first time, a lot of the structures that organized your life are gone. The schedule someone else set, the expectations of home, the defined social world you grew up in. What replaces it is freedom, but freedom has a weight to it. Choices and freedom are parallels, and choices can feel daunting.
The anxiety that comes with that isn’t necessarily a sign something is wrong. It’s something that we all need to contend with when life’s doors open and we get to choose directions.
Is it normal to compare myself to others?
Yes. And here’s why.
We are highly social creatures with brains wired to track where we stand relative to the people around us. College can be a hyper-social environment — surrounded by peers who seem similar enough to you that comparison feels almost automatic. Same age, same school, maybe even the same major. The social radar is definitely tracking.
How we feel is often a good tell of whether or not that comparison has become a problem. When someone else’s internship or relationship or apparent confidence starts to feel like evidence that you’re behind, not enough, or doing it wrong. That kind of comparison tends to generate anxiety without generating anything useful.
Social comparison is something therapy can really help with. We can get clearer on when it’s working for you and when it’s just running in the background making noise. Becoming more aware of it then allows you to decide how much weight you give it.
Why does having more freedom sometimes feel worse, not better?
Because freedom requires you to choose, and choosing means giving something up.
The major you pick can make other doors feel like they’re closing, at least for now. The friend group you land in shapes how you see yourself. And underneath all of it are some harder questions: what do you actually want, and how much of what you’re chasing comes from your own interests and goals versus something absorbed from your parents, your past, your own expectations or theirs? Those are difficult questions to sit with when you’re also trying to pass your classes and figure out where to eat.
A lot of young adults start to feel they may be outgrowing the advice available to them. Parents are often well-meaning and have done so much to get us where we are, but no one has all the answers. Your experience is your own and some of it you have to figure out through living it. Part of this stage of life is developing your own way of thinking about what you value and what actually matters to you.
That takes reflection that most people don’t slow down enough to do. Therapy can help open that up.
What do you do when your passion and your major don’t match?
This tension almost always comes up, and it doesn’t necessarily go away after college or even late into one’s career. A guy studying finance who wants to make music. Pre-med because it’s the responsible move, with little real interest backing it up. The practical path sitting across from the one that actually interests you.
There’s no clean and singular answer here, but there is an honest question underneath it: is the practical path something you’ve deliberately chosen, or something you’ve drifted into because the alternative felt too hard to justify to yourself or others? Those are different situations. And they’re worth exploring and squaring up with.
College can also feel underwhelming
Not every challenge in college is academic. Some young men find they can get by without putting in their best work, and that creates a different kind of problem: a lot of unstructured time that has to be filled with something.
How you fill that time matters more than it seems in the moment. The habits, relationships, and ways of spending your hours here tend to follow you out the other side. That’s not an argument for making every moment productive or responsible. College is also supposed to be lived. But having an honest conversation with yourself about where your line is, and what you might regret, is worth doing before you’re on the other side of it.
Is some anxiety in college actually helpful?
Not all anxiety is the enemy.
The student who prepares for the exam, shows up for the presentation, takes the internship seriously — that often happens because some part of him cares enough to feel the stakes. That caring produces a discomfort that moves you forward rather than stopping you. It’s the anxiety of not wanting to waste the time, the experiences, the opportunities in front of you.
College is a particular window of time and it does close. Using it well isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present enough to look back and say that was formative, that was fun, and I showed up for it.
The expectations you brought with you
A lot of students arrive at college with a picture of what it’s supposed to look like. The social life, the parties, the classes that light something up, the friendships that feel like the ones in movies. Some of those things come through. Some don’t, at least not the way you imagined.
The adjustment isn’t just about lowering expectations. It’s about recognizing that college, like most things worth having, requires you to build the experience rather than just receive it. The friendships, the sense of direction, the feeling that you’re doing something meaningful tend to come from effort and engagement, not from waiting for them to show up.
What therapy actually does for college men
You might not know what there is to talk about for 45 minutes with a male therapist. You’ll probably be surprised. A good therapist opens up conversations you didn’t realize you needed to have, and helps you get to know yourself in a way that’s hard to do alone, in the middle of everything else going on.
We all need dedicated time to understand what our experiences are teaching us, what they mean to us, what our values really are, and what it would look like to make choices that truly reflect them. That’s not easy when the options seem endless and you’re feeling the pressure of shaping the life ahead of you, which is why it’s so helpful to have a sounding board.
To encourage someone literally means to put heart into them. Therapy can be that during these years.
A note on reaching out
If any of this resonates, reach out. The first conversation is free and informal, a chance to start talking about your experience.
Reach out when you’re ready. →
Joe Nord is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and male therapist in New York, working with college students and young men in New York City, Westchester, and throughout New York State.