Imagine if college worked like Strava, the fitness tracking app that’s taking over our feeds.
Every week, you’d open an app and see what everyone else logged:
“18 credits completed.”
“Accepted internship.”
“Leadership position secured.”
“Another 6 a.m. grind — no days off.”
You’d see stats. Pace. Consistency. Streaks. You’d scroll through your feed and watch your peers rack up achievements at a speed that would make your own progress feel embarrassingly slow. And without meaning to, you’d start “racing,” competing against other college students.
That’s kind of what college already feels like.
At just 19 or 20 years old, it’s shockingly easy to feel behind. It’s not because you’ve failed; it’s because constant evidence of others’ successes surrounds you. Comparison is no longer abstract — it’s quantified, timestamped, and publicly affirmed. Someone else’s momentum becomes a quiet question that you now carry with you: Why are they moving more quickly than I am?
And yet, there’s a reason that Strava is so popular in the fitness world: Competition can be motivating.
Seeing someone else run farther or train harder than you do can push you to lace up your shoes when you otherwise wouldn’t. Without reference points, it’s hard to know what maximizing your potential even looks like. We need models. We need examples. And need to see what’s possible.
The problem is that both Strava and college culture only show one kind of effort.
Strava logs the miles you run, not the injuries you incur. It counts the streaks, not the days when you stopped because your body didn’t feel well. It rewards consistency, not discernment. And it quietly teaches us what counts as progress.
Similarly, in college, productivity starts to look incredibly specific. “Progress” means internships, leadership roles, packed schedules, and visible ambition. These are the achievements that people post about — and the things that others affirm. Over time, these successes become what we prioritize, not always because they matter most to us, but because they’re the easiest to “log.”
Quiet days don’t translate well to a social media feed.
No one posts about the afternoon they spent reading a book that changed how they think. They don’t detail the hours they spend scrapbooking, watching their favorite movies, or taking a walk with no destination. Those moments don’t have metrics. They don’t earn us applause. They don’t look impressive when we stack them against someone else’s new internship or spot on the Dean’s List.
So in the moments when we practice self-care, we start to feel unproductive, even when these practices restore, ground, or even transform us.
The achievements that others choose to share shape our definitions of “progress.” Our priorities slowly mirror what others post about. And before we know it, we start running a race that we never truly entered, measuring our worth by milestones that may not even align with the lives that we want.
The irony is that growth isn’t always visible. Most of the time, growth happens when we have nothing “exciting” to share.
I’m not anti-Strava, and I’m not against college culture either. I just don’t want us to confuse visibility with value. Not everything meaningful needs to be posted online to count as a success. Not every season of growth looks like forward motion.
Some days are for running faster. Others are for stopping entirely. And neither shows up well on a feed.
Before chasing your next milestone, ask yourself whether you’d still value that achievement if you couldn’t log it. That simple question could open your eyes to what you truly prioritize in life.
Featured Photo by appshunter.io on Unsplash.
