I always have and I always will. (Which is good considering my choice of major.) My favorite day of the year has always been the first day of school. To me, it was a holiday. I would plan out my outfit weeks in advance, wake up early to do my hair, and grab my backpack full of freshly sharpened pencils and blank notebooks just waiting to meet one another. Want proof? Check out my first days of Kindergarten and 1st Grade:
School meant new clothes, new office supplies (which I have an outlandish love for), seeing my friends five days a week, and cartons of chocolate milk on the daily. But more than any of that, it meant learning. I loved absorbing new knowledge. There's just something special about taking your first set of notes for the year. Education was something that was always there for me. Through fights with friends, family hardships, and medical problems, I could always count on going to school and learning something new. I'll echo Irish poet Yeats who once said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
College broadened my horizons. Up until my first day at BGSU, I had never met anyone else who truly loved learning as much as I did. I'll never forget sitting in my first day of Critical Thinking. It was in that class that I realized that I was surrounded by people who felt the same way as I did. I met a professor who challenged my ways of thinking and truly changed education for me. (I'm honestly afraid he's going to see this and judge my writing. Heath if you're reading this, I do apologize greatly.) It was in that classroom that I grasped how blessed I was to be receiving a college education.
With that being said...
Tomorrow is what I'm dubbing my first "not" day of school. For the first time in my life I'm watching all of my friends go to class, meet professors, and grab syllabi while I sit at home. I knew two weeks ago how hard this day was going to be for me, but this article isn't about that. This post is about something different.
The past 24 hours I've witnessed a plethora of tweets, status updates, and text messages of people complaining about classes starting - some with people already looking forward to skipping class. Now I'm not here to judge them or tell them they're wrong. I have endured PLENTY of papers I didn't want to write, lectures I didn't want to sit through, and days where I just wanted to sleep. I have skipped a class or two myself when I have been ill. College is hard, it really is. It's stressful, challenging, and isn't always fun.
But it's a privilege.
There are millions of people who wish they had the opportunity to pursue higher education. People who long to attend a university but can't due to financial, physical, emotional, situational, or personal reasons. I personally know a handful of people who cannot attend college due to financial setbacks, and my heart hurts for them. Higher education is highly sought after from nation to nation, but not everyone gets the chance. Earning a degree plummets you ahead of the pack. In 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the median weekly wage of a person with a bachelor's degree was 63.5 percent greater than that of a person with only a high school diploma.
But it's not all about the academics. College is a place where you learn about life. You learn that deadlines matter. You learn how to prioritize. You learn that no, you CANNOT microwave Styrofoam. College is a place where you make friends that will last a lifetime. Friends that will make you laugh. Friends that will bring you chicken soup when you're sick. Friends that will challenge you to be a better person. Friends that could later become colleagues. It's a place where you meet professors - both bad and good. There's no doubt that you'll have some professors you don't necessarily care for, but you'll also meet a handful of inspiring adults who shape every part of your being, mentor you on your future career, teach you how to be an adult, and ultimately change the way you look at life. Take in everything you can from these professors. They're much more than just teachers.
I'm by no means telling you all to love school the way I do. You don't even have to like it. But I'm challenging you all to take a step back and conceptualize the realities of the benefits and privileges that coincide with receiving a college education. As you walk across campus today, take five seconds to breathe. Five seconds to just stop and reflect on where you are and how you got there. Five seconds to think about how these four years are going to completely change your life.
Breathe, look around, and remember not to take it for granted.
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