Struggles and Realizations of a College Student
I am a college student, and every semester of my collegiate career I have seriously considered dropping out. At the end of my freshmen year I was adamant, dead set, 100% sure, that this was it. I am not doing that again. This is not for me. I am dropping out of college… and moving to Texas to become a car mechanic.
My grandpa was car mechanic, he never went to school, and he built a business empire. I can do that… right?
But something felt wrong, sinful, even now as I ponder whether to drop out of college, I can not help but feel a chasm open in my stomach and unease creep into my throat. I am disappointed in myself for even thinking about dropping out of college. I loathe myself for not studying. I spend hours learning about everything except for what is going to be on the exam tomorrow evening. I don’t hate my major, it’s interesting. The exam I have tomorrow, it’s on Finance, I like finance or at least I know how important it is. But its mid terms already and I have done 3 problems all semester for this class.
I do not hate college, in fact it’s a good place for me. I am a lifelong learner, and nothing really beats the buzz of a good intellectual stimulation. College is great. What I hate is lethargy and procrastination, I hate that I am lethargic and I procrastinate. Richard Turner’s famous words keep ringing in my ears, “Do you know what I consider to be the worst disability of all? Procrastination and laziness. Give me blindness over that any day of the week.”
I am taking an Art History class, honestly, I took it just to satisfy a required Art credit. Everyone moans about a class like that. “After all if I am not an art major why do I have to take an art credit.” Art classes are time consuming and can be very expensive. I only took art history because it did not require me to go out and buy two thousand dollars’ worth of supplies or spend twenty hours a week on it. Before the class even began the professor asked us to read a Washington Post article by the former president of the Association of American Universities, Hunter Rawlings, titled College is Not a Commodity. Stop treating it like One.
“Unlike a car, college requires the “buyer” to do most of the work to obtain its value. The value of a degree depends more on the student’s input than on the college’s curriculum.”
Hunter is speaking from experience; he is a teacher. This argument is not limited to Universities, it stretches to high schools, middle schools, elementary, all of education. That’s what learning is, it’s the process of acquiring knowledge. Notice the word acquiring, it means to obtain for oneself.
See this is the great thing about college, it is a mustering ground for a variety of intellectuals and perspectives. A class selected with a frown and the word “useless” muttered several times, became the ashram where I learned what it means to be a student. The most important lesson I have ever learned so far.
I am a lifelong learner, I have always known that, I spend majority of my day learning. I know how to take advantage of college and add value to my degree, I know what real hard work is like because I have done it many times, and I know how to study because I have done it successfully many times. However, I wane away from studying what I am paying thousands of dollars for. As I grow older, I become more lethargic towards school. Why is that?
Is it because I am anxious of failure? If I do not study and fail then it is because I did not study, and clearly, I did not study because I am not interested in this subject. I know this because the most influential people in my life tell me to study what I want to study, pursuit what interests me, if it does not interest me then obviously I would not study it. But what if I am already studying what interests me and I continue to run away because I am afraid of failing at something that I chose to do. Am I afraid of the consequences of my own choices? Are laziness and procrastination, my way of escaping this anxious state. This might be partly true.
Another argument which is brought up often is that school is too structured, too standardized, people cannot learn that way. It is a fair point; individuals have individual needs. Education is something where the student must do all the work; thus, it makes sense that schools must be individualized. But my school already is, I have a very specific major, a specific concentration, a specific minor, and I chose all of them voluntarily. It is as individualized as possible; I have a variety of classes to chose from and still sloth triumphs over me. This sloth then turns to a distaste towards the education.
I was not slothful towards school a few years ago, I am not slothful about driving my car, or binging shows, or learning in general. I love learning, but still. Still I run away from the learning which really matters most, the learning I am investing the most amount of monetary value in. The biggest investment of my life thus far. Why do I run away, why do I push aside, why am I so suddenly unmotivated when I open up the textbook which has a million cuisines to satisfy my endless curiosity?
Why?
I loathe myself for wanting to drop out of college despite knowing all this, I abhor sloth, I am disabled by laziness and procrastination regarding the most important process to take place in my life so far.
I am perplexed and concerned by this.
I do not want to leave college; I want to be the best student that I can be. I want to conquer laziness, I want to slather procrastination, I want the most value I can put into a college degree.
I am NOT in between a rock and a hard place. I am an immortal sat in a dessert parched, and in front of me rages Leviathan’s sea. If I jump, I can drown, but being immortal I can eventually learn to swim in the barbarian currents. If I stay dry then I will be baked and parched in the endless sands, where I shall remain swallowed in eternity.
