A question that I have been puzzled with lately, “Is college really worth it?” and as someone who threatened to drop out every other week and endured 5 years just to pay 30,000 for a piece of paper I am going to have to say NO; but before you think I am crazy … let me explain.

I initially went to school to get a degree in Exercise Sports Science to be a physical therapist, but like the majority of us I completely changed my mind and ended up with a degree in Art (because that’s my thing, flips hair). But over time it became more than just trying to get to class on time, which I could never do (sorry mom, because I know she will read this) and maintaining an above average GPA, which I never had or really cared to get.

Honestly it just became about finishing a goal. I was that person who NEVER finished anything… ever. It became about me learning how to survive on my own for the first time in my life and turning every hidden failure into a classic masterpiece. It was about me becoming a successful woman outside of the mold I felt society placed on me because all I ever heard was how hard life would be without a degree. It became about me fighting every ounce of depression and anxiety that tried to take over my soul with a grip so tight only God himself could separate the three of us. It became about finding the strength to get up every single morning when all I wanted to do was die. All of it was bigger than just a degree it became the puzzle of life that I fought entirely too hard to put together and keep together.

Creating an identity for myself and discovering that there is life outside of the comfy little square called the comfort zone and reinventing myself time and time again. It all became about love; finding love, losing love, finding it again and then losing it all again.

Now, when I said college wasn’t worth it, I meant it, but everything that transpired during those five years was everything I needed to become the person I was meant to be. The purpose of going to college for me was simply to find myself, it wasn’t about the structure or the classes, or anything for me. It was solely about finishing, and completing one of the biggest chapters in my life and being able to say I. Actually. Did it.

-Di