Oh College

Besides learning how to study, how not to study, and how to not study, besides learning to live without my family and to coexist with a complete—and sometimes passively aggressive—stranger, besides learning how to survive with $3 in your bank account for the next 5 days, besides learning that failure—while not the most opportune—is an inevitable and often recurring result, besides learning that (pretty much) the only way to meet new people is to leave your safety blanket of a dorm room, and that sometimes those new people are actually the most interesting people you’ll ever meet, besides learning that drinking coffee is a must and if you can drink it black then you’re really cool, besides learning that my parents’ and personal opinions are not the only ones to ever exist, besides learning that my disagreement doesn’t automatically mean the adverse opinion is wrong, and besides learning that changing my mind is okay.. sometimes—I have difficulty pinpointing the most important thing I’ve gotten from college up to this point.

Learning seems to be the common thread—rather the process of learning. As a future educator, current student, and new experiences enthusiast (well moderate), it seems that the quality I’ve had the most time to develop before and during my time in college is my desire to be consistently acquiring new knowledge—becoming a lifelong student.  University life, if nothing else, helps students become literate within a particular field. We are training to be trainable, and are in the opportune environment to currently develop the necessary skills for future workplace development. College has allowed me to refine my literacy both scholastically and socially (well I’m still working on that one), and has naturally provided various facets for experiential growth—like not driving to Starbucks when Tech’s roads turn into rivers, not eating Einstein’s everyday for an entire semester (even though it’s delicious), and most importantly not entering into situations believing you know all that you possibly could about people, ideas, and traditions.