Dear prospective college students,

It is at this point in my semester every year that I start to question why on earth anyone would ever willingly subject themselves to the tortures of higher education. I write so much I think my keyboard hates me, my body is screaming at me to give up, and I can write an essay faster than my professor can give out the instructions. I am a grade A college student. As I think about all it took and is still continuing to take to keep me here, my thoughts go out to all the nervous and confused high school seniors who are writing their last finishing touches on their essays and searching through each college’s website as though they have never read anything so interesting in their lives.

The choice to go to college or any type of higher education is extremely difficult, not only does the student put an exorbitant amount of time into the actual application, but also for many students there is an enormous push to go to college, sometimes it can feel as though if you don’t get in, all that primary education was for nothing. All through high school, I will confess, none of these things mattered to me. I was not worried about passing, I was not worried about colleges, I just wanted to live from day to day. I went about my life like that until I was staring at my computer screen at the online application. My chest got tight, my hands started to shake, I felt like I wanted to throw the computer out the window.

Sometimes we can go through life waiting for the biggest moments of it to hit us. In that moment I realized I was not only about to submit something that might determine my entire future, but would also determine whether my entire past had been worth it. All the days I didn’t want to go to school but still found myself in class, all the fights with my parents, and all the books I hated reading, they all were determined by whether or not I am able to succeed. It is a very scary thought to come to the conclusion that nothing else will matter if you cannot get where you want to go. As it turns out, many people do not go where they originally intend to at the age of eighteen.

Because we decide where we are going or what we are doing, people think that they control everything. In other words, if one does A and B they will get C. It is an equation that makes perfect sense and should be correct. The problem is life does not revolve around perfection or around what humans determine as A and B and certainly not C. My point being that while I remember how terrifying it was to possibly not go exactly where I wanted to when I wanted to, I did not die from it. I went to school, I transferred after a year and now I love where I am. It was not as much of an end of the world as I first thought it would be. It will be the same for you, to all the people who are trying to finish their applications and are nervous about pressing send, I believe in you.