According to a recent and controversial book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, many students show no significant gains in knowledge during their first two years of college. And this very well might be true. Thinking back, I can’t say I learned too much sophomore year while I was skipping GEOG 201 with my roommate or mourning the death of my brain cells in non-credit math freshman year. Does it get any better as upperclassmen? Well, I can’t say I learned much last semester in ARTH 200 except that ancient Greeks love nudes and the textbook works well as an ironing board.
But as I look back fondly on my four years here, I’d say I definitely learned some vital lessons that can’t really be quantified in a study or published in a book.
I came to this university without my high school friends — I started from scratch. My closest friends here have become my family. Together we have crashed house parties, climbed rooftops and stadiums, thrown tea parties, gone on midnight joyrides to Ocean City, survived Snowmageddon, gone abroad and been almost decimated by a semi-truck en route to Quebec. My closest friends and I have written excessively long and unnecessary theses, learned how to forgive for past hurts, comforted one another through heartaches and defended each other. In college, I learned to value love and friendship above all else.
I have met some of the most diverse and beautiful people here. I’ve met super-tall ninjas, hopeless romantics, half-Cherokee archaeologists obsessed with British folk-pop, German poetry lovers and the smell of cleaning products and students who enjoy upper-level genetics courses (yeah, I don’t get that one, either). I’ve come to know people of every creed, background, disposition, size, shape and cupcake preference. From this I learned to accept and respect others I meet along my life journey and appreciate the inevitable impact they will have on my life.
When I came to college I was an awkward, strange, dry-humored girl who didn’t really know what kind of person she was or wanted to be. OK, so I may still be strange, awkward and dry-humored. But now I’ve come to learn that it’s acceptable to wear dresses with jeans, rock red lipstick on Mondays, wear frog rain boots and talk obsessively about peace, love and Star Wars while baking vegan cupcakes. It’s fine to be crazy about polar bears as long as I treat others with love and respect, control my temper, am patient and work hard to be good, authentic and genuine to others. I learned that I’m the kind of girl who gives people millions of chances, believes that loving is the best way to spend your day and knows that moods are directly correlated to weather patterns. In college, I learned to strive to always be the best version of myself that I can possibly manage to be.
Finally, I learned that you can never predict how life will turn out. Rather than fearing change and uncertainty, you should, as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “want the change” and “love the questions.” Dear God, after four years of messing shit up, making obscenely poor life choices, kicking ass and taking names, there’s nothing more to want but the damn change.
Every single one of us learns lessons like these during our years here. The stories might be different, but the lessons are the same and equally important. So, are we learning meteorology, remedial math or art of the Western world pre-1300? Maybe not (I’m not). But I like to think that we are learning some much more impressive life lessons here.
Mallory Servais is a senior anthropology major. She can be reached at servais at umdbk dot com.
