Four years after I first set foot on this campus, after parties have been attended, friends have been made and all the grades have been given, I am now officially a college graduate. I have walked across the stage and received my diploma. And now, it seems, is the time to make sense of the incredible and extremely varied four years I spent at this university, reflecting on what went right and what did not.
My time spent among the brick walls and Georgian architecture of this campus has undoubtedly changed me, transforming me into a person who hardly resembles the freshman who arrived at this institution in 2007. Yet, much of this transformation was not connected to my experience in the classroom. Indeed, it was not the endless lectures that made a man out of the boy I entered the university as. But rather it was the mix of the many different viewpoints of students at this university combined with the overwhelming freedom that college provided.
After all, in college, you can chose who you want to be. You are no longer followed by your high school reputation. If you were a bookworm in high school who was afraid of your own shadow, you can come to college and spread your wings and become a social butterfly.
And this ability to decide who you want to be, who you want to be friends with and what you want to do with your time is perhaps even more critical to the college equation than all the classes and discussions you sit through every weekday. Looking back, this is why living on-campus was so important. I had such a rich four years because I was able to be involved with the school and my friends daily. At what other time in your life do you live with your friends and in close proximity to 10,000 other students? It is a unique situation that needs to be fully appreciated.
Yet with the good comes the bad.
One of the worst aspects of the student experience at this institution is choosing a major. Too often, people just pick a major to be done with the bureaucracy and settle into a path. Other times, students choose a major without sufficient knowledge of what it is and what the career opportunities are. To me, the learning experience needs to be linked to one’s interests and experiences, which is why the use of a gap year, which enables students to gain experience through volunteering, internships, training programs and travel, should be further encouraged. Gap years are common in places such as the United Kingdom and often give people time to figure out a little bit more about their interests and help prevent people from wasting time and money on a course of study that is not for them.
Like anything else, college has its pros and cons. Yet the benefits of college are so varied and wonderful that many people — myself included — routinely refer to it as “the best four years of my life.” So, to all of you who are still enrolled at this university, I say to you: Make the most of it; college, despite the drawbacks, is truly a wonderful experience.
Cory Kutcher graduated in May with a degree in kinesiology. He can be reached at kutcher at umdbk dot com.
