Every morning, I get up two hours before my first class to prepare for the day. I take my time lathering my face in lotions and potions. I browse my wardrobe for the perfect combination of apparel, footwear and accessories. I pick out complementary jewelry, grab a matching bag, a spritz of perfume — and I’m out the door.
Here I am, making my way through the sleepy morning campus. I’m looking and feeling great. But what am I met with when I enter my 10 a.m. French class? Downcast faces covered by the hoods of dirty track team hoodies pulled over unruly hair, pajama trousers, mismatched socks and slides, or even worse — Crocs.
Why do students and professors alike accept that their classmates can show up in whatever they rolled out of bed in five minutes ago? And more importantly, why is no one calling them out?
Let me provide a disclaimer: I completely understand that college is hard, especially with many students struggling with mental health challenges that affect one’s ability to put in effort into their appearance. This is not the student that I aim to target here. I am speaking to those who simply don’t care about their appearance, who believe that it doesn’t influence anything and that thinking about it is pointless. Nor am I arguing that everyone should wake up hours before their class to doll up like me.
First of all, let’s dissect why an average student may decide to turn up to class looking like they haven’t seen a ray of sunshine. You probably went to bed late after grinding on that one assignment before, of course, browsing Tik Tok for at least half an hour. In the morning, you really want to maximize your time in your warm, toasty bed, so you wait until the last possible moment to get up and get going. You finally unveil the swarm of blankets to reveal your outfit of the day. You guessed it — pajamas and Birkenstocks! And there you go, waddling your way to your 8 a.m., with swarms of others just like you, fitted up in your cocoons of laziness.
Now let’s dig into how a start to the day like this affects not just your day but your entire life.
“Is your best learning really going to take place five minutes after you have opened your eyes, in the clothes that you slept in for seven-plus hours?”
First of all, what tone does this kind of outfit set in a learning environment? Your teachers have put in time and effort to curate a lecture that will hopefully teach you something. You and your classmates have hypothetically put in a lot of work for the class, and you’re ready to learn more. Do you really think that by wearing your pajamas you are paying respect to your professors and your classmates?
Not only are you disrespecting and harming those around you with your monstrosity of an outfit, but most of all, you are hurting yourself. Is your best learning really going to take place five minutes after you have opened your eyes, in the clothes that you slept in for seven-plus hours? I say no.
One of the main reasons why I like taking so long to get ready in the morning is because of the time spent to mentally prepare myself for the day — to lay in bed for a while and stretch, to wash my face, to sit at my table and do my makeup, reflecting on the previous day and listening to music. By the time that I set foot in the classroom, I am already wide awake and ready to go.
Now think about how a habit like this will affect your life after college. You will most likely get a job, which will probably have some sort of dress code, no matter how loose it is. Surely it’s best to practice these habits in college, before you are in a professional setting where an unprofessional appearance can cost you your job?
I truly believe that the amount of effort that you put into your appearance affects your life in significant ways. And the most confusing part of this whole thing is that it really doesn’t take much time or effort to get into the habit of dressing up. Just wake up ten minutes earlier. Force yourself to get out of bed and throw on some jeans and a shirt. I’m not asking you to catwalk down a runway here, just to ditch the pajamas.
At the end of the day, do I really care what you look like in class? Not really (mainly because I’m paying attention to the lecture on account of my put-togetherness). However, I think that implementing this habit into your daily life could help you in ways you couldn’t even imagine, and I want to inspire you to try it out, even if it’s just for one day.
Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM’25 is from Moscow, Russia. If you ever see her in her pajamas at Collins late night snack, it doesn’t count…
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