Question about enjoying life through its challenges

I’m a sophomore electrical engineering major in university (undergraduate) and for the past year and a half of college, it has honestly been horrible.

Now I’ve pretty firmly come to the decision that I’m just gonna stick it out and there’s nothing I can do to change how things are and I’ve admitted that all I can do is figure out ways to change my mindset and attitude. I know that once I come out of school I will most likely be a lot happier and it’s just a mental game until then.

My question is, if anyone has had a similar experience, what were ways you managed to enjoy life through school and or hardships? More generally, I’ve been curious about ways people can find happiness even through all the pain in life. I’m genuinely starting to forget if I ever felt happiness in life but I think I’m being clouded by this bad time. However, I know that life will always be hard so the only way to have a good one is learning how to be happy despite the challenges. Because I would also just straight up be disappointed if I had such few good memories from such a unique time like college.

I want to supplement my question with a rant about how bad EE school has been lol. It’s like before I got here, I had a whole life that I cared about, family that I took care of and loved, a very wide range of hobbies and passions, and a curiosity for the world. Even though I had hard moments, overall I remember being happy. I’m not sure if my brain is misremembering how good things were or something but how it is now, it’s like I’m experiencing the opposite of that life I once loved. It’s like I got cut off from it and have started a new one that I don’t care about. This is honestly a crazy experience I haven’t had before because it feels like I’m stuck in a hellish dream I can’t escape I feel like I’m going by definition insane because I keep repeatedly realizing how horrible this feels but then nothing changes and the cycle repeats.

Also, I know I can physically get through it because I’m not bad at school and have good grades but I just wish I could enjoy my life while doing it.

I spend so much energy on school that I also have memory loss like I’ve never had before. Most of the time I couldn’t tell you what I did last week (which I think is because I don’t have time to reflect on life like I used to so my memories aren’t sticking as much like with unused muscles and muscle memory). My memories are so important to me because I’m a very nostalgic person so it has been demoralizing having this issue.

Every day I wake up and dread living this new school life and I find myself having to really fight to not give up.

The difficulty of everything also affects other areas of my college experience. I have made many close friends who care about me a lot but school has turned me into a party pooper and I know that I could be a much better friend and socialize a lot more if I wasn’t so exhausted and unmotivated all the time. Same thing with romantic relationship stuff. I crave it but if I had it, I think I’m in too bad of a place mentally to do good in that type of relationship right now.

So idk I’m curious about any help or input or anecdotes or opinions