It may be common misconception that people go to college for an education. Although they do learn things like calculus and chemistry while there, it’s the hidden lessons that mean so much more. It’s the situations and trials that help us discover the lessons of life, how we apply to them and, in turn, find out exactly who we are. I find it hard to believe that ten years after we graduate we are going to remember or care how to do a titration curve or discuss the deeper meanings behind a Shakespeare play. But discovering our values, work-effort and other personal traits will still be with us no matter what we fill our days doing. It is my belief that we get homework for more than the shallow purpose of beating the meaning of a derivative into our heads. We get homework, and more importantly stress, from every class we go to because it helps to teach us so many more things than the words on the papers could ever do. Are we going to go above and beyond to make sure we get the best grade? Or are we going to push it off until midnight the night before it is due so we can go out and party with our friends? Or better yet, what exactly are we willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish our long term goals.
What exactly are our long term goals? Are they merely pipe dreams we hope to wake up to one day? Or are they the first thing we think of when we wake up and before we fall asleep? Everyone wants to have fun in the here-and-now. But everything comes with a price. And one thing I’ve realized is that everything has a price on it. We can either earn it before hand, or we can pay for it afterwards. It is as simple as choosing to party or study. If we work hard and complete all of our dreaded homework, we earn the right to have a good time. But if we go to party and neglect to do our homework, then we pay for it when we see our grades begin to fall. Everything in the world is available to us at all times. We can have an amazing and wonderful night being high or drunk and pay for it the next day when we sleep through class, forget to go to work or potentially have legal consequences that will really screw up our lives.
So what does college teach us? It teaches us exactly who we are. Sure it helps to know how to analyze a poem or find the height of a ball 4 seconds after it’s shot from the moon, but it means so much more to find the balance we all individually have between work and play. We are all different and we all have different goals and ambitions. It’s here, in college, through all of the stress, available activities and responsibilities that we find out exactly what it is we want out of life and how hard we’re willing to work for it.
Andrew Reid
