Whenever I hear someone say “College will be the best four years of your life,” I kind of freak. This expression makes me want to wake up early, call up some friends, and make plans to do something ridiculously and stereotypically fun like clubbing or, say, skydiving. After all, I apparently only have one year left of the best period of my life.

In actuality, college really shouldn’t be the best time of our lives. Or, rather, I sincerely hope it is not the best time of our lives. Think about it this way: hopefully, myself and every person reading this have long, healthy lives and live to at least 80. In college, you are around 20 years old. If college is the best time of your life, then your prime years happen only one-quarter into your life. Does this mean the remaining three-fourths are just….decline?

I honestly believe this is not the case. To those who claim their college experience is the best time of their life, I would say it is probably the best time of their life so far. Life is really, however, only going to improve. After all, college at its core is about learning and this includes learning academically, socially, and professionally.

Quite often I find myself fixating on my blunders, concerned I have made a mistake so irreversible it is sure to ruin the rest of my college experience. Sometimes I am even afraid a screw-up will blemish the rest of my life simply because I am dramatic like that.

Really, though, college provides the time and space to make these mistakes. It is the transitional time where we are kind of adults but where many of us still have safety nets to carry us after said mistakes. Every class, every party, every group project I like to see as mere playground experiences where we develop those essential skills and learn those difficult lessons. As a result, we will be better prepared to handle the scarier, adult-world versions that will inevitably hit us later in our lives.

You can stress about the time you missed the really awesome party because you procrastinated on a twelve-page research paper or you can cry about the subpar midterm grade you received because you did not begin studying quite early enough. Or you can take these sucky experiences and let them teach you the importance of time management and work-life balance.

You can remain humiliated over getting too drunk at a frat party or wearing an outfit you, in hindsight, found really ugly. Or you can understand the party will not be the best party you ever attend and that you have all of your twenties to go to clubs wearing proper attire and drinking proper quantities.

You can beat yourself up over choosing group project mates who turn out to be more concerned with trivial matters like debating the pros and cons of certain luxury coffee drinks than with, well, the actual project. Perhaps though you can apply this frustrating experience when you’re looking for jobs and trying to figure out what kind of work environment will be the most productive for you.

There are obviously those people whose lives do seem to come together in college and their experiences seem like the ideal. If this is the case for you, if you do find your “soulmate” and your best friends in college and enjoy every single class, I would still argue college is not the best time of your life.

Maybe you have found a great partner in college. Think about how much better the relationship will be once you do not have to worry about signing him or her into your dorm late at night or negotiating with roommates for the time you would like to spend alone with your significant other.

Think about how much better those beautiful friendships you made during college will be once you have real jobs to discuss rather than just difficult classes. There is also the bonus fact that you can have these conversations over adult brunches instead of dry biscuits and overcooked bacon at the dining hall.

If you love your studies, just think about how amazing it will be to apply the fascinating knowledge you grasped to a thrilling career for which you are actually getting paid.

Of course, I realize I am painting a very idealized vision of the post-grad life. Many of us undoubtedly have a lot of struggle to anticipate in our twenties and the rest of our lives—and some more than others. We will be forced to stare down troubles including unsatisfying job searches, relationship woes, loneliness, and financial problems. Yet, I really do believe college will make us better equipped to manage these struggles. Ultimately, the best times of our lives are ahead of us and will not soon be in our rearview mirrors.