Generally, when you discuss time in high school or college with your friends or acquaintances, you may notice that you can divide the speakers into two groups: those who loved that period and those who hated it. On the surface, everything seems quite simple. Those in the first group picked the right major and were extremely successful in it. Those in the second group made some wrong choices.

Those in the first group didn’t have any social life and devoted their time solely to studies. Or, they learned that you could order coursework writing online and enjoy a social life while professional writers were taking care of the overwhelming amount of homework. But what about the second group?

The point is that the problem is more complex. You can be extremely successful in your studies but still be unhappy. You may be the worst student of all time and still enjoy your years in high school or college. Whether you enjoyed your years of going through the educational system or not relies heavily on your emotional response to your experience. And that’s when emotional intelligence enters the stage.

Emotional intelligence, which is also known as emotional quotient, is, in brief, an ability to maintain your emotions. If we are to explain more broadly, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, manage, and use your emotions positively. Using emotional intelligence can help you to subdue stress. It allows you to communicate better, learn empathy, avoid conflicts, and successfully deal with challenges. Needless to say, emotional intelligence can be extremely helpful for students’:

• Emotion Control
• Enhanced Communication
• Stress Reduction

You can run into a lot of tough circumstances as a student. Moreover, everything that will seem like no big deal several years later seems like a catastrophe when you’re a student. You often run into misunderstandings with fellow students and teachers, often taking offense when people have no bad intentions. As a result, you’re in constant stress. Now, let’s check out how emotional intelligence can help you to deal with that.

Enhanced Self-Awareness

One of the most common issues that you may face as a student is losing interest in your studies. Yes, you know that your education will have an impact on your future. When it comes to college, it was you who picked the college and the major. But, slowly but surely, you find it extremely difficult to sit through the classes and then do your homework. You want to rebel against your studies and can’t pinpoint the cause of this attitude.

Being unable to pinpoint the problem, people tend to let it loose, which inevitably leads to problems multiplying. Emotional intelligence provides increased self-awareness. It doesn’t mean that you will constantly study proactively. Even self-aware people suffer a temporary loss of interest. Yet, being emotionally intelligent means being in touch with your own feelings. Hence, you can pinpoint the problem and tune it out, so you can focus on your studies.

Increased Communication Skills

Miscommunication is one of the biggest problems that you can face while in high school or college. For example, you have a project that you’re struggling with. You can’t make any progress, the deadline is getting closer, but you’re not asking for help. And when failing to submit the task on time, you blame everything on your professor who has assigned the task.

The same goes when you have issues with fellow students. You’d rather turn into enemies, rather than communicate problems that you have. But emotional intelligence leads to improved communication skills. You know that you should let your professor know that you’re facing difficulties with the project as soon as you run into them. And you know that you can communicate most of the problems you have with your peers.

Better Problem-Solving Skills

Basically, it’s summing up the first two points. Quite often, you may consider the failed project or fellow students gossiping about you as a complete and utter disaster. You don’t want to study; you’re going to fail at everything; those stares and whispers bug you constantly… That’s the end of life. Those are your thoughts when you don’t analyze the situation.

Emotional intelligence allows you to analyze situations better and approach them differently. Come to think of it, you’ll graduate from your high school and your college, and the gossip won’t bother you. You don’t have to communicate with your schoolmates and college peers after graduation. A failed project or test? You can retake them. Ever tried, ever failed. Try again, try better.

Communicate Your Feelings

When you’re a teenager or even in your early twenties, you find it extremely difficult not only to communicate your feelings but even share them. There can be various reasons why you decided to shy away from talking about your emotions. Maybe you told your parents or friends how you felt once and didn’t get the response you expected. Perhaps there weren’t a lot of people around you who talked about their emotions openly, and you decided that keeping it to yourself is a standard thing.

But keeping it all to yourself is not healthy. The stress will mount, and you have no way to relieve it. And you end up on the highway to depression. Emotional intelligence allows you to talk about your feelings freely. When something bugs you, make sure you have someone to talk to about it. You may not need someone to provide you with the solution, but someone who listens can be extremely helpful.

Better Stress Management

All previous points lead to better stress management. Emotional intelligence allows you to pinpoint the cause of stress. Recognizing the problem is the first step to solving it. You can talk about the way you feel, which allows relieving the stress. Problem-solving skills allow you to find the way out of difficult situations or at least, change your attitude toward them. And when you know how to deal with stress as a student, you won’t allow it to stand in the way of your academic success.

Final Thoughts

Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in the student’s life. Aside from providing them with the possibility to succeed academically, it allows them to have better social interactions with both teachers/professors and fellow students. All in all, it makes the overall education process better. Moreover, emotional intelligence will come in handy after graduation, as it’s going to be as useful in professional life as it was in college.