It should come as no surprise that your college years are often less about your education and more about finding who you are.
College is a time period where you shed your old self and learn who you're going to be for the rest of your life. These are your golden years, where you get to party and be reckless. You're encouraged to try new things and find your passion. You find yourself in college, which can be a little scary for bright-eyed high school seniors who have never been pushed out of their comfort zone before.
This will most likely be the first time in your life you've ever been exposed to this many people, opinions, and cultures. Everything is an open forum now. You're part of a community, whether you like it or not. If you choose to be engaged, you will get told that you're wrong, and often.
I think there's a reason that we gravitate towards pop culture and idolize celebrities. It's because those people have a more accepting open forum to express themselves, their opinions, their culture, and their heritage. The things that make them who they are. We envy the ability to be praised for our opinions, because too many of us are asked to fit inside of a box or a stereotype.
If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If a tweet is tweeted in the middle of campus and gets no retweets, is that person relevant?
The answer is undoubtedly yes. It can be too easy to come to college and become who other people want you to be. You exist in a jungle of tests and parties and social media and political activism, and all of it is screaming at you: "PICK A SIDE!"
Sides are easy. Sides give you a script. Sides tell you what your opinion is before you have the chance to make it yourself.
So, I'd like to present a new option, a scarier option: take the time to be vulnerable in college. Do something that is leaps and bounds out of your comfort zone. Get to know people that you never thought you could be friends with. Tweet that thing you typed out and then deleted because you were afraid no one would favorite it. Take up a hobby. Make some art, even if you don't want to make art for a living. In the words of Asher Roth, "Do something crazy."
Find yourself.
