The endgame is in sight. Fuck the dishes, fuck the obligations and fuck what remains of my education. Four years of hard work have granted me this rite, or at least that’s the popular conception. Our imminent expiration will deliver us from Geneseo with something scholarly, something cherished and something that we probably should have grown out of by now – be it a school spirit shirt from high school or some learned behavior that I have yet to kick.
In coming to college, I had a rigid, disciplined idea of what my education should be. College was this dogged ritual my hard working father drilled into my head after his seven-to-five custodian job. As my freshman year unfolded, I made more time for friends – and a little less for my schoolwork than I care to admit.
In some ways, for me, my sophomore and junior years involved one fumble forward and then faltering some.
Doing work usually involved tickling my keyboard, hoping that Lady Fortuna would grant me a sufficient word count. I thought that if I could get my work done, do some internship on the side and focus on my friend group, I was doing college “right.”
College is a “sweet spot,” a time when we can relax, kick back and party because it is supposed to be the time of our lives. Never again are we going to be able to have large clips of time off to lie around our house and watch Netflix all day in between semesters. Drinking and sitting around are the ways that we maximize our prime.
But this attitude is counterintuitive. Geneseo students have access to a growing number of resources in a small and removed environment. Simply disregarding these would be foolish.
I am grateful for the patience and capacity of the professors here. Without an engaging curriculum, I would have felt more bewildered by what exactly I was spending my four years doing in splendid isolation.
This isn’t an attempt to shame those who have a fun time on weekends – I am one of them. There doesn’t have to be a tradeoff between having fun in college and pursuing your interests. Keep things interesting for yourself and avoid a stale social life. Many of the parties and bars that are appealing as an underclassman start to follow a script as you become an upperclassman.
Get involved in something meaningful and pursue your interests. When you get out of college, it could give you direction. That isn’t something that happens when you are busy spending your time with the same like-minded people. Branch out and make connections through clubs you are interested in. Find a few organizations that really catch your interest and dig in.
Being involved isn’t lame. Pursuing your betterment and development gives you experiences that are not easily forgotten, unlike weekends spent huddling around a keg. You might actually leave college with some cool stories, other than that time you “Jersey-Turnpiked” a “rando” at the bar – believe me, those short stories are not in short supply.