June 14, 2003

• Wow. So finalz week is finally over. Now for me, who is coming back for a fifth year, this means very little. However, for a number of my compatriots who i have grown up with and met in the last 22 years, this was the last exam many of them will have to ever take (except those going on to graduate, medical, or law school, but still!)

  So after 4 years, a number of us have to step back and appreciate what these last 4 years have meant. College. A place where your professors don’t know your first name and your friends don’t know your last. College. A place where people who can’t cook anything more complicated than ramen complain about buffet style dinners served at regualr intervals. College. A place where the currency of choice is quarters, and it actually IS possible to meet someone in the laundry room. College. A place where frienships are formed over similar musical tastes, and feuds begin over parking spaces. College. A place where surrounded by 36,000 peers, you can still complain there is nothing to do. College. A place where you stay up all night studying with friends only to fall asleep in class.

  Becuase my monlogue was getting a little repetitive there, here is a chance for everyone to take a breather. Okay ready again…just normal monologue speak..

  College. A place where the constant is spontaneity. Where else can you begin makin plans to go to a party at 10, and end up in the supermarket at 3am. Where else will you be able to hold discussions about existentialim over pizza and beer, or discuss physics while playing video games. A place where people you have known all your life change and grow in ways you never expected. Where you find things out about yourself you never knew, and sometimes, may not have wanted to dsicover. Perhaps College should more accurately be reffered to as Collage, for it is the amalgam of experiences all coming together in this one place that help to shape who we are and what we will become in the future. Where the doctors, lawyers, politicians and filmakers of tomorrow are the partying, drinking, drug-using, game-playing, stressing students of today.

  What did we really learn in the last four years? We have learned how to network, how to push the mind and the body to accomplish things, how to work to a deadline, and how to speed up the process when we couldn’t. We have learned how to have successful relationships, or perhaps deal with failed ones, how to make new friends, become part of a group, or perhaps strike out on our own. We have learned which rules of society can be broken, and which should not, we have learned the way life works, and that very rarely can any of these “life lessons” be imparted in a classroom or lecture hall. Perhaps, most importantly, we have learned what it is to simply be human.

  All these things and more have convinced me to avoid the real world and stick it out one more year in this relatively responsibility free paradise. But don’t think that the real world will be any different in terms of human interaction…more likely, it will be just like college, only more so, with fewer parties, and more hangovers, fewer discussions, and more lectures…but also a campus which covers the entire world, and places to visit that don’t require pre-requisites and rote learning, but thinking on your feet.

  Yes the college experience has meant a lot to me, as have all the people i have met and interacted with, loved, hated, and downright ignored. It is a perfect microcosm of how life operates out there in the “real world”. So to all my friends going on to bigger and better things this graduation, whether I have talked to you recently, or just met you, I salute you and wish you long, interesting lives filled with obstacles that will present you with difficult, but not unwelcome challenges.

  Moral of the Story: Sometimes I feel a need to wax a little melodramatic-but you got to admit, from here on out, everything begins to change. Good Luck, everyone…finals may be over, but the real test is just beginning!

  -The Josh

  • 1:47 am
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