Reflecting on College

School is starting on Monday, which means there is less than a week before I begin. My classroom is coming together and the lesson plans are slowly coming into place. This realization has caused me to reflect on my past four years of College more than I thought. Starting out on this journey has made me appreciate the past four years than ever before. I wanted to post something I wrote in my Senior Lifeview Paper.

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“An education at college will not consist of memorizing a giant pile of facts during the four years it takes to graduate; it will be in the ability to learn those facts and how to take what you learn into your world. No college, no student body, and no faculty of trained professionals, can teach you in four years everything you need to know for your future, and yet, on graduation day, you will still feel as if you are ready to take on the world.” That is a quote I had in my reflective essay my freshmen year of college, just a few months after move in day. It couldn’t have been a truer statement. You start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of college is balancing the two completely different worlds you now live in, trying desperately to hold on to everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind. In the matter two and a half weeks, we will leave our world of living next door to our best friends, walking across campus to eat, 8:00am classes, and the perpetual procrastination to a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we lived in it for twenty-one years.

Going into my freshmen year I was beyond excited; I wanted to get out of my area and see something different, I knew I wanted to go farther away. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but I seriously just needed my space. My freshmen year I would describe myself as young and easily intimidated. Looking back I realize I was always really afraid of what would happen if I put myself out there; with classes, guys, friends, involving myself of campus, etc. I needed to grow up. I needed to learn to become more independent than I already was, but also learn to depend more on other people and learn that it is okay to do that. I needed to grow up and learn how the world works. In my essay from freshmen year, I talked a lot about growing up in the next four years, and I have most definitely done that.  I learned to put myself out there more or else I would always wonder “what if”. There is something so powerful in those two little words. Those two little words that are so small but when you put them together it can be so powerful and take over your mind.  

So now, it’s my senior year, about 18 more days until graduation day. I made it through the past four years with many ups and downs, many new friendships, many emotional rollercoaster’s, many leadership positions. I came into college wanting to start over and take risks and I did. I learned more about myself in the past four years than I ever thought I would. I’m looking back and realizing I still believe going to a liberal arts college was the right and best thing to do. It gave me a different sense of how I viewed the world. I look religion classes that encouraged my faith, I look Latin as my language and now it has become my minor, I was able to take piano classes for the first time in my whole life, and I was open to different viewpoints about politics and religion. I became exposed to things that I would not have gotten if I went to a school where the only classes I took were for my major.

          I learned I’m not the person I thought I would become. This can either be positive or negative…but lets face it, we all change. We come into college thinking and planning our life out. Before you know it you're reflecting on your life and realizing how much you have changed.  I came into my freshmen year knowing I wanted to be a teacher and I’m leaving with an even stronger passion about teaching than before. You react to situations differently then before, you are trying out new things, meeting new people. You're developing into your adult self. Times are scary and what’s scarier is everyone and everything’s changing around you, without even know it...and somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two completely different worlds.

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More about my reflections later...I'm exhausted from setting up my room and lesson planning all day! I believe all the American teachers are doing a "French Toast with FRIENDS" night. One of the best breakfast foods (the way my Dad makes it) with my favorite TV show...pretty good night after a long day :)