I had an epiphany the other day. I was on the phone with the company who manages the apartment I am currently leasing (aka The Worst Leasing Company In The World) restraining myself from screaming at the woman on the other line. I’ve lived in my apartment for almost eight weeks now and our toilet has worked correctly for about half of those weeks. Needless to say, the toilet is a key part of a man’s apartment. After countless phone calls, teeth-pulling, frustrated visits to the management office, I finally managed to get them to replace the toilet completely.
Back to the epiphany. As I was half yelling at the lady on the phone, I realized that this is the real class period. An academic education is certainly an important part of the collegiate experience, but nothing compares to the experience of finally living on your own, with no parents as a safety net. I have learned that you can’t keep milk for more than a week or so before it goes bad. Apparantly you have to pay for electricity? And, oh yeah, doing laundry sucks worse than Chicago sports teams right now. Last year, living in dorms, I didn’t have this experience. Meal points dictated how often and essentially what I ate every day. Now, if I don’t go to the store for a while, as was the case over the past few weeks, I don’t eat, or at least not anything worth eating.
Had I been home, my Dad would have been on the phone with the leasing company, my Mom would have bought my Honey Nut Cheerios from the store, and I would have been oblivious to all of this. Here, I was forced to do all of this myself. I am starting to have to make decisions and take actions that resemble that of an adult. Scary.
Education, not just in the class room. Cost: $25,000 per year.
You people are lucky. Had I been blogging at this time last year, you would have had to read a painful, painful blog post about leaving for college for the first time. I surely would have posted some sappy, cliché song (if you are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five and that happens to be one of your favorites, don’t be ashamed, I feel you). I would have written about the countless memories I had with family and friends, about the time so-and-so broke a window or how my friends and I had a great time at prom. I also would have written how I was “super excited” to start the next chapter of my life as a college student, meet new people, make new friends, go to college parties, finally learn about “stuff that matters”, etc.
If I were you, I probably would have thrown up in my mouth a little if I had to read something like that. It may have been painful to read, but it would have been written honestly. The truth is, even as much as it is played up in movies, going to college is completely life-changing. A year ago, I was a different person than I am today. I have experienced things that have made me a better person, just as I have experienced things that I would not be comfortable telling my grandmother about. It’s impossible for me to describe the way I lived my life last year at school to someone who has never experienced college. College is not a chore, college is a party. I don’t mean that in the literal sense, although that is certainly true. Responsibilities and expectations of normal life do not exist while at school. It is truly a surreal experience. All the guys act like they are fifteen, and all the girls try to act like they havn’t gained weight (I kid, I kid).
I’m not sure what I am getting at, other than if you still have college ahead of you, it is something to look forward to, and if you are out of college, I hope you look back fondly on those years. As I’m sure all of you already know, I decided in the spring to transfer from Indiana to the University of Illinois. Although I will be a sophomore academically, I feel like an incoming freshman inside. I am just as excited as I was last year, and just as nervous. I know this year will bring many new experiences, good and bad. In the next year’s time, I will live in my own apartment for the first time, turn 21, and move one year closer to being in the real world. I wish you all good luck, whether it be at a school you love, a job you hate, or in whatever it is you may be doing. Go Illini!
Today, I was trying in vain to start a paper for my writing class. The paper has to be between 6 and 8 pages. As I sat at my desk, trying to BS a thesis statement, I realized that throughout my academic career, I don’t think I’ve ever written a paper that was any longer than the minimum length (usually less). As in, for a 6 to 8 page paper, my paper would be exactly 6 pages in length, not a sentence longer. This troubled me.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. I could ask any of my friends or fellow students and they would share similar feelings. Students could show you 5 ways to find the Cliff Notes for the book they are supposed to be reading, or 10 friends they know who already did the math homework and can give them the answers. Rather than becoming experts in Mathematics, kids are becoming experts in the ways of cheating and BSing their way through school.
What does this mean? Our schools and entire educational system have taught us not to think creatively and form our own ideas, but rather to do just enough to get by. High school and college are supposed to be about learning real world skills and ideas. For the most part, all I have learned is how to get a good score on a test! When I see and hear dozens of students cramming an hour before the test, regurgitating the information back while taking the test, and then forgetting everything they just “learned”, I have to stop and think; if college is really for learning, why don’t I remember most of the things that were on tests I took last semester? Don’t get me wrong, I am just as guilty as the next guy when it comes to this idea of regurgitation, but it is a very troubling idea.
Shouldn’t we be taught the lessons and ideas, rather than how to make those ideas into an ‘A’ paper, or how to turn those ideas into getting an ‘A’ on a test, or my personal favorite, how to know JUST enough to get that 89.6 percent? There really is no simple solution, and there probably never will be. In fact, I bet my generation is worse than the last when it comes to this, as the next generation will be even worse than mine. I don’t really know why this bothers me so much, but I feel that I havn’t had very many teachers and professors who have inspired me to go out and want to learn things. Quite frankly, a lot of the learning I have done has come from outside of the classroom, from my own pursuings of subjects. That’s great for me, but what about most kids, who don’t have many real world interests outside of school? I hate to break it to you, but Myspace and The Hills aren’t going to make careers for any of us. Someone/something needs to change. All I’m asking for is some INSPIRATION!
Wow that was long. I feel better now. Excuse me while I continue to NOT write my paper.
