The College Experience has become a well-known term for incoming college freshman around the country. Our perception of the college life is molded by popular television shows and movies. Usually, college dorms are littered with red solo cups, beautiful girls in miniskirts that flirt with the athletes, and you never see these so-called college students actually studying or making the trek across campus carrying their weight in textbooks. If you haven’t seen Animal House, well, spoiler alert. By now, my college freshmen, I’m sure you have found that these stereotypes are just that. They’re stereotypes. Those colleges were created with the assistance of extremely nice studio lighting and well-paid actors.
What I’m here to tell you is that that isn’t the real college experience. You will soon realize that college parties are way better than any high school hang out and your social life has increased immensely. We are encouraged to partake in the metamorphosis of our social skills the entire length of our time on a university. But please don’t let the amount you drink or the selfies you take determine whether your college experience was memorable or even successful.
Those movies, television shows, and your own standards of what college has to offer isn’t the only reason you are here right now. Your time on campus should be judged by how you find yourself. It sounds extremely corny, I know, but trust me. The college experience, in fact, is really the time you spend on your own. The times you are so stressed out about a deadline you can’t think straight, the times you miss your family, and the times you feel like you have no idea what you want to do with your life. Those are the times you will remember about college. And what defines your outlook on the glory days will be how you overcome those obstacles and deal with the stress and the unfamiliarity.
College is all about discovering passions, learning how to be yourself, and looking towards the future. Therefore, the real college experience is found in the relationship you build with yourself. Although we sit in classrooms and study algebra, history, and psychology, we are really studying ourselves. We’re learning our capabilities. We’re learning our limits. Most of all, we’re engaging our passions and creating our own image of the world without the interjection of family or status quo high school standards. This is your stage and your movie to produce.
My point is you are in college. Have fun, go to parties, and mingle with all the amazing people you get to meet these next four years. But don’t forget to take time with yourself. Take time to recognize hardships. Take time to reflect on your performance. Take time to build a relationship with yourself. Because when it’s time to put these four years into a memory box, your wisdom and mental strength will be the recollections that will accompany you to your future. That’s what the real college experience is all about.
