College doesn't suck because you lose all those aforementioned comforts of home, however. Your roommate, neighbors, and dorm will begin to build a homey framework the day you move in. College doesn't suck because you miss your friends, either. It's easier than ever to keep tabs on your friends back home, almost to a frightening level. You can gauge what they're thinking about with a text, see how they are spending their money, and know where they are at every second should you want. You'll naturally find people who share your interests and passions, too, without even having to look too hard. As impossible as it might be to believe, college doesn't suck because you miss homecooked meals. You'll find new favorite restaurants, stomach your school's dining hall staples, and realize you might have some culinary genius within yourself. Better yet, college doesn't suck because some of your mentors and role models won't be around in person. Your professors will be eagerly awaiting a visit during office hours to get to know you as a person and offer invaluable advice about what you might do with your life.
College does suck, however, for a whole other list of reasons. Everybody tells you college is the best four years of your life. If you graduate on time, though, that's a flat out lie, which is the first reason college sucks. Not because of the initial part of the statement, though. As soon as you move in come August, the clock will start counting down from 3 years and 9 months. Not four years. Your summer leading up to move in day might have provided incredible memories you'll never forget, but you were simultaneous robbed from the upcoming stage of your life. If you go home over the following summers and subtract different breaks out, you'll realize your time will be significantly dwindled. That number after some arithmetic will likely turn into a figure of less than 33 months. You're essentially graduating early, and you never even realized it.
College also sucks because of an impossible balancing act to strike. The only way to ensure your time measures up to the romanticized level of expectations is by diving in headfirst to every option presented to yourself that you find interesting or deem intriguing. You'll meet your best friends at school this way. You'll best prepare yourself for your professional future this way. But you'll also realize this only accelerates the pace of your 3 years and 9 months. Thus, an unsolvable conundrum develops. Excluding yourself from doing everything you love will leave you unfulfilled and unhappy and make time grind to a halt. Doing everything you love leads to a great quality of life, but then initially a perception, followed by a reality, will reveal your days of happiness are hastily evaporating. Over analyzing your attempts to balance this scale will prove futile as unpredictable forces constantly exasperate the difficulty.
It will naturally take a little longer to realize this, but college sucks because as the semesters go by the blurred recognition of where your home is becomes harder to discern. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you could potentially get to a place where you are surrounded by such quality relationships you feel you have two families. But as each year passes by, you'll have to suffer the emotions you get when you watch Michael Scott leave Dunder Mifflin, only magnified by an exponentially greater factor with every passing April. It will be impossible to imagine not having the faces of best friends around in such familiar places, but at the end of the day, such is an important lesson for life in general. In college, however, this distress hits you severely for most likely only the first or second time in your life, and the ideal environment you worked so hard to build around yourself will have irreplaceable people absent. The depression caused by this is downright paralyzing if it creeps into your mind too frequently, especially as your junior year draws to a close.
Finally, college sucks because even when you might be making one of your dreams come true, you're simultaneously missing out on something else. This isn't a revolutionary statement I'm making, but in a generation so engrossed in minimizing our exposure to the crippling force of FOMO, it needs to be accepted sooner rather than later. This past year alone, I met an idol of mine, crossed two top ten items off my bucket list, and created stories, inside jokes, and memories I will eternally cherish. While all of this was going on, though, other people I care about were having a blast. Without me. I'll never be able to completely understand and thoroughly empathize that dual experience, and I won't be in those pictures subsequently plastered all over social media. That really sucks, and that's why this fear exists. But you'll come to remember the justification for why you made your choice. You'll come to learn everybody else is grappling with the same struggle of channeling the proper amount of availability to a vast network of outlets. And you'll come to acknowledge if you're too risk averse to commit towards anything, the crippling weight of your regret will inhibit you from having any shot of enjoying your college experience.
So, to the class of 2020, college truly does suck. Trust me on this. It might take a while for this to hit you, but the insight will run you over like a truck eventually. But you know what? You shouldn't be afraid of this. Every year of college will be infinitely more entertaining, exciting, and fun than the last. Nearly every day you're at school it will feel like you're living in a magical paradise. Enjoy every minute you spend with your friends. Ponder your favorite professors' lectures before you go to bed. Take the long way to class on a beautiful day. Stay at the football games through the alma mater.
Yet, every once in a while, don't forget to take a step back to just simply appreciate and be thankful for who and what you have in your life. Because at the most obscure, fortunate, or frustrating times, you'll get reminders that college concurrently serves as an enigmatic purgatory before you enter the real world.
In those former moments, it will be impossible to not smile, laugh, or cry when you think about all you are able to treasure.
In those latter moments, you'll be reminded why college ultimately sucks: Even if you follow your perfect roadmap to maximize and capture every last drop of attainable bliss, your tap will run dry before you're ready, expecting, and prepared for closing time.
J. Nave
It will naturally take a little longer to realize this, but college sucks because as the semesters go by the blurred recognition of where your home is becomes harder to discern. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you could potentially get to a place where you are surrounded by such quality relationships you feel you have two families. But as each year passes by, you'll have to suffer the emotions you get when you watch Michael Scott leave Dunder Mifflin, only magnified by an exponentially greater factor with every passing April. It will be impossible to imagine not having the faces of best friends around in such familiar places, but at the end of the day, such is an important lesson for life in general. In college, however, this distress hits you severely for most likely only the first or second time in your life, and the ideal environment you worked so hard to build around yourself will have irreplaceable people absent. The depression caused by this is downright paralyzing if it creeps into your mind too frequently, especially as your junior year draws to a close.
Finally, college sucks because even when you might be making one of your dreams come true, you're simultaneously missing out on something else. This isn't a revolutionary statement I'm making, but in a generation so engrossed in minimizing our exposure to the crippling force of FOMO, it needs to be accepted sooner rather than later. This past year alone, I met an idol of mine, crossed two top ten items off my bucket list, and created stories, inside jokes, and memories I will eternally cherish. While all of this was going on, though, other people I care about were having a blast. Without me. I'll never be able to completely understand and thoroughly empathize that dual experience, and I won't be in those pictures subsequently plastered all over social media. That really sucks, and that's why this fear exists. But you'll come to remember the justification for why you made your choice. You'll come to learn everybody else is grappling with the same struggle of channeling the proper amount of availability to a vast network of outlets. And you'll come to acknowledge if you're too risk averse to commit towards anything, the crippling weight of your regret will inhibit you from having any shot of enjoying your college experience.
So, to the class of 2020, college truly does suck. Trust me on this. It might take a while for this to hit you, but the insight will run you over like a truck eventually. But you know what? You shouldn't be afraid of this. Every year of college will be infinitely more entertaining, exciting, and fun than the last. Nearly every day you're at school it will feel like you're living in a magical paradise. Enjoy every minute you spend with your friends. Ponder your favorite professors' lectures before you go to bed. Take the long way to class on a beautiful day. Stay at the football games through the alma mater.
Yet, every once in a while, don't forget to take a step back to just simply appreciate and be thankful for who and what you have in your life. Because at the most obscure, fortunate, or frustrating times, you'll get reminders that college concurrently serves as an enigmatic purgatory before you enter the real world.
In those former moments, it will be impossible to not smile, laugh, or cry when you think about all you are able to treasure.
In those latter moments, you'll be reminded why college ultimately sucks: Even if you follow your perfect roadmap to maximize and capture every last drop of attainable bliss, your tap will run dry before you're ready, expecting, and prepared for closing time.
J. Nave
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