College is one of the most influential places in someone's life. It happens during a time period where most people are transitioning from being a teenager to an adult physically, emotionally and academically. There are so many things that people will learn during these four (sometimes five) years that will stick with them forever.

The academic world of college life is filled with experienced professors, forward thinking classes, high-tech labs and rigorous coursework that can make your head spin. While all of these things are great and extremely beneficial to learning in the classroom, some of the most important things you will ever learn in college are things you will learn outside of the classroom.

Here are five things no class, professor, power point or paper will be able to teach you while you're in college.

1. How to live with someone else

For most people, you had your own room for the first 18 years of your life - your one place where you could find some peace and quiet. One of the biggest changes when attending college is learning to live with another person.

In college, gone are the days of a singular safe haven and here are the times of sharing. It can be difficult at first to adjust to living with another person, especially with varying sleep schedules, room preferences, cleanliness and just how you get along with them. It is one thing to be friends with someone, it is another thing to live with them. I have been lucky enough to live with some great people since coming to college, but I know others that are not so lucky.

College roommates tend to be some of the best friends you will make during your time at school, whether that be due to the small confines of a dorm, the crazy memories you will make or all the late night pizza orders. No college class can teach you the things you will learn by living with someone else.

2. How to survive on very little sleep

Ask any college student what they wish they could do more of during the school year, and a common answer would be to sleep. Catching some Z's can be difficult when you have a huge test, three papers and a speech all due tomorrow and it's 11:30 p.m. and you want to squeeze in one more show on Netflix before you start working on them.

If you know me, you know I love my naps, but even I sometimes can't find time in the day to catch up on my sleep. When finals week rolls around, college campuses look more like a zombie apocalypse has struck. Students stumble across campus heading to their exams dressed in over sized hoodies, a hat pulled down low to cover their bloodshot eyes, and their bodies running solely on caffeine, stress and vocab terms.

Sleep is valuable, so nap often because there will be nights when its 4 a.m. and your first class is at 8 a.m., and you will have to decide between the all-nighter A+ or the sweet dreams C- on that paper.

3. How to deal with failure

One of the most important things to understand about college is that it's not high school. I know there are a lot of people who got great grades on everything in high school and continued that in college, and that's great. However for me, and for many people I know, college has been the first time where failing at things has happened. In college, professors aren't there to make sure you pass, they're there to give you the material and move on. It is up to you to absorb what they are saying.

It's going to happen, you will fail that test in that class you don't like, or mess up the format of that paper. That's completely fine, you will learn more in failure than you will in success. College is meant for people to learn from their mistakes. It is the last stop until the real world, where mistakes don't hurt your GPA; they could get you fired. So don't be afraid to fail in college. Learn from it and do better next time.

4. Who you really are

Okay, I know that sounds super deep and cliché but it's true. College happens to take place in a very important time in a person's life, roughly ages 18-22. For your entire life leading up to college you lived with your family, in your hometown, with your friends and went to school. All of those things shaped you into who you are after high school. But in four years of college, you will meet more people from different places and with different backgrounds than you had met in your entire life. These people will have different points of view than you're used to, introduce you to new and exciting opportunities and push you to be your best

There are countless examples of people coming into college thinking they want to do a certain thing with their life, and by the time they graduate, they are doing something completely different. I think that is one of the most important things college can teach someone. Yeah, book knowledge is great, but knowing yourself is something that simply cannot be topped.

5. How to be a leader

College is a very unique opportunity that only an incredibly small portion of the world's population ever gets to experience, let alone graduate. This unique set of values, lessons and experiences that college provides are ones that will mold you into a true leader. Now I'm not saying that if you don't go to college you can't be a leader, and I'm not saying by going to college you are automatically a leader. What I am saying is the things that you learn outside of the classroom simply by being a college student will set you on a path toward being a great leader if you so choose. In the world we live in today, there are far too many followers and far too few true leaders. The leaders of tomorrow are on college campuses all over the world, so get out and meet people, you never know who is going to make it big one day.