Monday, February 7, 2011

A New Beginning. (Media Meditation #1)


College is about an education. It’s about a degree. It is about the professors and the credibility and the status. At least, that is what I had been told throughout high school. AP classes, SAT practice books, extracurriculars and countless tutors prepared me for this huge next step. I applied to ten schools. Got denied by two, including my top choice (Eff you Syracuse, we would never have worked anyway). Visited the remaining eight and got attached to my safety, my faraway and tiny perfect college-town school.

Taken the very first time I visited Champlain College. Their mascot is the beaver.
I ended up choosing Champlain College on the last possible day anyone could decide. It was a decision I wasn’t immediately sure about. It was far away. Nine hours and 38 minutes by car. It was small. The size of my high school. It wasn’t well known. Not when your parents went to the Ivy Leagues and your younger brother was destined for the same. At least those were my concerns.
I decided that I was not going to let this be the wrong decision. I came to Champlain with a new attitude. I was going to try new things, I was going to make friends, be outgoing, be a leader.
I kept my promise to myself. In the first semester of college, I really put myself out there. I joined clubs. I went indoor rockclimbing. I went cliff jumping. I went to concerts. I went to Maine to go whitewater rafting. I went skiing on real snow for the first time. I joined a student planning committee and applied for a job planning activities with the school, which I got.  I went out. I tried a relationship for the first time. I got a twitter. I got a blog. I started using social media in ways I never had before. I made friends. I made connections. I made a new life.

 
This is Bo Burnham, one of the people I saw in concert after first coming to college.
It took coming to college for me to realize that everything my high school told me about college wasn’t true. Sure, college may be for an education. Some people just go for the degree. However, I think that I have already learned so much more than that. It is about learning to live on your own, in a room with three other girls.  It is about planning your time and finding the most comfortable chair in the library. It is about spending your money on ramen because the dining hall is too far and trying to keep in touch with people from back home. Ultimately, wherever you go and whatever school you choose, it isn’t about the degree or the lessons from the classroom, it is about the lessons from outside the classroom. It is about taking the tools they provide you at your college and using them when you go out in the world. In my case, it is new types of media I have never used before. It is about grabbing the world by its’ balls and creating your own life and your own story, no matter where you end up going.