When I was growing up, I was taught college is the end goal – the light at the end of the painfully long tunnel known as my education. However, in reality, I feel like I have learned more in a single semester than in my prior 13 years – and next to none of that learning has been done in a classroom.
While I could tell you all about Journalism 108, joy-based news values or what the root of famine is according to my World Hunger and Food Security course, I have learned the most in a 132-square-foot, picture-plastered dorm room.
For example: how to build a home and a family on your own, and then how to not do it alone.
My most valuable lessons have been learned a mile away from rolling desks, in the snow between my dining hall and dorm where a grand snowball fight was held between my roommate and I, or curled up on our dark green futon figuring out what it’s like to finally have sisters.
High school didn’t teach me that I would one day learn to love winter again, or that you will find people who drop everything to find the pierogis you are craving. I was never told that a diploma was only the beginning and that those years of honors classes don’t mean half as much if you cannot find joy and pride in what you want to do for this world.
High school may have tried to teach me how to be an adult, but college is doing a really good job of teaching me how to be a kid.