What College Really Taught You

By: Samantha S. Daviss

You typically walk away from every life experience learning something. Whether it be via a book, a professor, a lecture, or just a general common sense “Life lesson”; you walk away knowing something new. You may not realize it at the time, but you in fact have learned something new.

College is no different. Hopefully with that lovely, very expensive, four year degree you walked away with some academia knowledge, not just how to pop open a beer bottle with your teeth. Hopefully it was learned knowledge, from the well-paid professors that the university lured you in with to thatschool in the first place, that you can walk away with and offer a new perspective on the world in your field of expertice.

Now I say hopefully you walk away with some academic knowledge under your belt. But college also teaches you so much more than what you can learn in a classroom or a lecture hall…it teaches you the following:

1)

1) How in fact to open a beer bottle with your teeth or your class ring (if that's your thing);

2)

2) it is a necessity to soap the central fountain of campus in the dead of the night, without being caught by staff or faculty;

3) An infraction in your Greek letters is a no-no; but you have to rebel somehow, right?:

4) It may look like chicken scratch to the rest of the world, but you somehow devised your own form of short hand to survive all your long-winded professors;

5) Hangover Rule: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday…not a good idea; Thursday and Friday…still not your best idea; Saturday and Sunday…is a given. (Not that I'm condoning drinking.)

6) the ability to pull an all-nightwear on that dreaded final and still have energy to stay up for the game and after party the next night on no sleep;

7) You figure out that you can get a change of clothes, your lunch, four books, and a pair of track shoes in your backpack;

8) And with your backpack…you figured out that they are totally cool at college…especially when you are “doublestrappin’” (putting both straps on your shoulders);

9) You learn that friends are you family now;

10) And you learn that the bars right across the street(s) from campus were geniuses when they picked those locales. (Again, not condoning drinking)

College can be a lot of work, but college can also be a ton of fun. It is that time in your life when you really discover the real you and get out from the pressures of high school, and that particular mold you had been put into your entire life.

It’s the time you get to be a dork if you really are a dork; or a book worm if you really are a book worm; or funny and outgoing if you really are, instead of hiding behind who you think everyone wants you to be, or expects you to be.

College is amazing, so take that time to enjoy it, learn, and appreciate the gift you have been given with an amazing education and life experience.