Amidst conflict and adversity, at what point do you consider yourself fleeing? And are you okay with fleeing?

In my life fleeing before or after an encounter with an unsavory circumstance has always been associated with cowardice. One would suggest to pick your battles, but I aim to push through any obstacle humanly possible. Looking back on my life, I want a good reason to run away from something debilitating, anything less is unacceptable. I know before I entered the real world, I had suffered from being an idealist, with un-bruised expectations, but seeing how others operate has lessened my judgmental blunt force.

We all had expectations about college that are proving to be better or worse than we predicted. What is refreshing is persevering, and how we adapt to reality when it doesn't correspond with our expectations.

Some of us weren't prepared for the consequences of our expectations being wrong. For example, My closest friend Caroline is struggling with the reality that drinking and partying is ubiquitous in our student body, and the raging, devastating college parties have persisted past the beginning of fall term (Caroline enjoys partying, but not in the presence of zombies powered by alcohol or illicit drugs.) Every weekend hundreds of students crowd in a room meant for a maximum of ten people, ambulances practically stay on campus, and nursing alcohol poisoned corpses back to life is a newly acquired skill. Safe to say, no one prepared for this. With a tender history with alcohol and a phobia for throw-up, it is easy to understand why Caroline cannot take it anymore. She faces leaving, it is hard to convince her to stay... I mean I'm not paying around fifty grand just to do what typical college students have been doing for decades - drinking and smoking weed. However, I'm not willing, and I won't forgive myself years later if I allowed the actions of other people to sully my college experience and education. Especially since you will probably find a high amount of college students at ANY college drinking and partying EVERY weekend.

There is a reason I came to the college that I'm going to and for that reason my college didn't disappoint me. I have a mission and I want Eckerd College to be a part of it. It is one of the few colleges I'm willing to let claim responsibility for shaping me, but I'm not saying my peers or my expectations of my peers didn't disappoint me.

I was unfortunate enough to inhabit small high schools, one of which contained a maximum of about 450 students. The reason I despise small schools is that majority of the students share the same ideals. Intellectually speaking the kids are mostly lifeless, a high majority of students unwilling to learn with few dedicated teachers willing to teach them. When education is required, there are a lot of students who don't value that privilege. I LOVE to learn and my problem at these schools was the majority of students that didn't want to be there were polluting the experience for the ones who did. They would regularly disrupt the class and you cannot remedy the problem if it's the majority of the class causing it.

I moved as soon as I could (thanks to my family being in the army). Because of this, I believed that if people were investing in their education it wasn't being required, I'd be around more people who just wanted to learn. I don't know why I didn't foresee this assumption being wrong; our generation is conditioned to depend on college. We are raised that college gets you off the streets, or in a better living situation than someone living on minimum wage. We are raised to believe college is what makes a good life, so it might as well be required.

It hurts not to be within a majority of students whose hearts don't race about something they are choosing to learn. In the primary moments of class, one girl said, "I don't want to learn" or, "I can't believe you need a degree to do stuff." I incredulously relayed that to my friends, and that's when I learned how common this ideology is among my campus. Most people aren't here to learn... but what are they here to do??? People offended at my distaste justified it; some parents force their children to go to college, even paying for them. That is more tragic than the first two problems. Nothing is more depraved than to live your life according to someone else's wishes.

So seeing different ways people go about their lives conditions me to go more easy on myself, and I'm gifted with more understanding for other people. I don't blame anyone for how they confront a situation, what they do about it is what matters. If Caroline moves, who is to say the drinking won't be as prevalent wherever she goes as it is here, just as people are unwilling to learn? It isn't guaranteed that running away will solve problems, but overcoming them will. I won't judge someone for how they live their lives. I realize the majority of people want to enjoy a simple life, living how people have been living for ages (before that bothered me) and that is okay. I won't let others step in my path because I will walk around them. There will be a lot of hardship that will come with the life I want, some that will equate or surpass things I've already had to deal with. However, I know it has taken all of these moments to get me where I am now and where I want to go. I'm ready for it.