The Reality of College Life

There are many things you will learn in college that don't come from any classroom. I learned that from experience. In fact, I would argue that the most important things that you will learn while in your college years don't come from a classroom. They aren't part of your major, and no one will lecture you about them. Because the reality of college living is that you, for the first time in your life, have to make your own journey.

Freshmen arrive in college wide-eyed and hopeful. This is their first time away from home, in many cases, the first time away from the watchful eye of their parents. Campus seems a paradise of freedoms. But then reality sets in. The same activities get boring after awhile, you get used to the nightlife, or the attraction of the city. Homework crushes you, and pressure from professors, to say nothing of your peers, is all around. That is the first lesson. To take responsibility for yourself and your actions. If you know you'll be sorry after that night of partying, then don't party quite so hard in the future. Yes, it's fun to get carried away, but it's not fun to get the poor grade on the paper the next morning.

The next lesson hides in secret ceremonies and behind the doors of sororities and fraternities. But it doesn't have to. A large portion of the student body at any given college will go greek in their time at school. And greek life offers wonderful opportunities. Working for a greater cause, having a support system that is always there to catch you, having a place to go and people to talk to, whatever your need. It is possible to create this net without the greek organization, but greek life does foster such connections. To learn that you aren't the only person facing troubles, that it is possible to survive that course with the professor from hell, or just that it's ok to cry on a shoulder once in awhile is a great gift. The bonds of sister- or brotherhood are exceptionally strong.

And the last lesson that students frequently learn in college is the one that hits most closely to home for me. The reality of relationships. Though students probably will have been dating long before they come to college, that isn't always the case. Either way, the atmosphere in college is a very different one from home. You live in a dorm, and apartment, or a house, sometimes with a roommate, sometimes on your own. No one is there to check in on you, to peek in and ask how you are, or if you want a snack... You are responsible solely for yourself and your own actions. And in a way, that is something that teaches you, as a person, to feel, really feel things, for the first time in your life. You don't have to censor yourself, in fear of who will hear your confessions, your passions, your pain. Instead it's all there, in that moment, and you can learn to face it, or you can turn it down. Learning to face the parts of yourself that you've always kept hidden away is a most precious gift. In some ways it frees the soul. And it sets you up for the kind of person you will be for the rest of your life. And isn't that what college is really for? To turn a class of scrappy and rambunctious teenagers into responsible and able adults?

The most important things that you learn in college don't come from a textbook, they aren't highlighted in any margin, or caught on any professor's lecture tape. And there certainly won't be a test on it... But maybe there will be. Life after college is the true test of what you learned. Not if you are working successfully in your major, not if you are moving up the ranks. Not even if you were a straight-A student. Life is the great equalizer, and what it really tests you on is your ability to cope, and adapt, and be the person you have learned to be, even in a variety of taxing and difficult situations.
Consider this your cheat sheet.