Caroline Winslow
Layout Editor
College… a time that is told to be the best four years of your life. But is that true?
I am nearing the end of my junior year, so I have had ample opportunity to see what college life is about. A disclaimer for readers: I understand that everyone will have different opinions on this topic, but here is my insight on it.
I love the idea of college, that these are four years that I will never want to forget. However, realistically there are parts I will eventually want to forget. I will eventually desire to forget the panic of receiving a bad grade, the drama that comes with being a young adult surrounded by other young adults, and more than anything I will want to forget about the nights where I lay in my bed wishing that I was home. Not to mention the hassle of affording to live when we either have no income or very little income from the lack of available jobs on campus.
However, I will also be the first to admit that I have made lifelong friends and I have made memories with them that have made my years exciting. I have countless stories of weekends on and off campus with my friends enjoying the exhilarating highs of college stupor. And memories of buckling down with them in the library until our minds are nothing but delusional mush. Screaming dumb songs in the car with the people that for the moment I cannot dream of living without. But deep down I must also ask myself is that really all that life has to offer?
College is a blend of excitement and fun with stress induced by strenuous classes, the overwhelming need to keep up with our peers, and the packed schedules from all of the activities that we choose to partake in.
I got talking to my dad about college one day over spring break and he let me in on some very eye-opening information. He said, “College is about making memories, but also about getting you to the actual best years of your life. When you are a young adult, right out of college, you are making money and are free. You have the time and funds to continue to make more memories with friends and family.” He told me that those years are truly the best years of your life.
I think that I needed to hear that, not only because sometimes I feel lost in the world, but also because I needed to be reminded that after college there is still so much life to be had and so many adventures to be lived. I had already decided after my freshman year that after college I wanted to move back to South Carolina because it’s my home, but I was also worried that if I did that then I would lose all the friends and memories that I made here at school. After the conversation with my dad, I realized that that wasn’t true; we can still visit each other and make memories and laugh and grow together once we leave this place.
So, to the seniors and to whoever else needs to hear it: college is perhaps not the best four years of your life. They’re just four good years. You will still have those friends, those memories, those loves and losses, those pictures, and those laughs even after you graduate and leave here. They are part of you, but you are so much more than college. You are going to make new memories, have new adventures, find new people and places to love, and do great things with your life.
To the readers; let me leave you with this one last sentence: it should be that college isn’t the best years of your life, but the beginning of many great years and the future.