College as an experience
Sunshine Hammond
Issue date: 3/9/10 Section: Opinion
Why do we go to college? Is it all a means to an end? Or do we go for the college experience? The easy answer can be to get a degree or get a job.
However, the college experience is much broader than the classes we take or the subjects we study. Learning is so much more than studying a book. Rather, it is through the interactions we have that learning occurs.
Even at a time when online classes are fully accessible, students continue to take classes on a physical campus for the classroom interactions, discussions and for direct feedback from professors. Many of the specifics we learn in classes will be forgotten. What will remain is the interesting anecdote a professor used or the heated debate in a politics class. Activities outside the classroom also contribute to the college experience.
We want to be able to reminisce with our friends in the future about painting our faces and cheering for our college sports team. We want the moments of exchanging conversations and molding friendships with people we never would have known if we hadn't gone to college. We want all of these experiences. We want to know what it is to live the college life.
Everyone has a different reason for going to college. Yet, in some ways we are all here for the same thing. It's where there are no bounds on any of us, in any way. We all have a lot of opportunities. Cliques and high school drama are thrown away. It is a place where we can all be ourselves and develop into the individuals we choose to be. It is where our professors can be younger than half the class and it's okay. It is meeting our friends before class for coffee and discussing everything under the sun. That is the college life.
College is not simply a means to an end. It is a way of life. It will be the friends that help you cram for a big test that you will remember for years to come. The college experience is about failures and triumphs. Essentially, it is what you make of it. The college experience is one to embrace because soon enough you will be flinging the graduation cap up in the air. Then a whole new chapter will begin.
However, the college experience is much broader than the classes we take or the subjects we study. Learning is so much more than studying a book. Rather, it is through the interactions we have that learning occurs.
Even at a time when online classes are fully accessible, students continue to take classes on a physical campus for the classroom interactions, discussions and for direct feedback from professors. Many of the specifics we learn in classes will be forgotten. What will remain is the interesting anecdote a professor used or the heated debate in a politics class. Activities outside the classroom also contribute to the college experience.
We want to be able to reminisce with our friends in the future about painting our faces and cheering for our college sports team. We want the moments of exchanging conversations and molding friendships with people we never would have known if we hadn't gone to college. We want all of these experiences. We want to know what it is to live the college life.
Everyone has a different reason for going to college. Yet, in some ways we are all here for the same thing. It's where there are no bounds on any of us, in any way. We all have a lot of opportunities. Cliques and high school drama are thrown away. It is a place where we can all be ourselves and develop into the individuals we choose to be. It is where our professors can be younger than half the class and it's okay. It is meeting our friends before class for coffee and discussing everything under the sun. That is the college life.
College is not simply a means to an end. It is a way of life. It will be the friends that help you cram for a big test that you will remember for years to come. The college experience is about failures and triumphs. Essentially, it is what you make of it. The college experience is one to embrace because soon enough you will be flinging the graduation cap up in the air. Then a whole new chapter will begin.
Be the first to comment on this story