What I’ve learned at college
COMMENTARY
John-Mark Day

Yeah, so ... graduation. The time when you begin to wonder why you actually paid for four years of intense stress caused by trying fit your hopes and dreams into another person’s syllabus. I don’t feel any smarter, just sad and melancholy. And poor. Very, very poor.

The nature of graduation is that it makes one ponder what effect the four years have had. And while I may not have picked up as many academic skills as I would like for my professors to believe, I realize that I have learned some things. Here, then, is what I got out of my college education. See Mom and Dad, your money hasn’t been wasted.

College Lesson No. 1: College does absolutely nothing to prepare you for the real world. Sure, I can discuss theories of media ethics or sociological theories of religion. I could even do some in Japanese. But, I don’t know where to get car insurance. Or what a tax form looks like. Or how to fend for myself once I’m kicked off campus.

Now, to be fair, Career Services did sponsor a senior weekend earlier this semester to cover these topics. Unfortunately, it was a very expensive senior weekend, and I was a very poor college student worried about being a very poor alumnus.

College Lesson No. 2: If you graduate in four years, you’ll leave most of your friends behind.

College Lesson No. 3: People are not in deep competition to give you a job like you think they’ll be. I used to think I could graduate with my pick of jobs. That was before a friend of mine met a man who graduated from TCU eight years ago and was manning the cash register at Target.

College Lesson No. 4: I need a job. This isn’t so much a lesson as it is a shameless plug. If anyone is looking for a young, funny writer to throw an excessive amount of money at, I’ve got a good suggestion.

College Lesson No. 5: In your time here, you will have hurt, and been hurt, by people. You need to deal with the ramifications of both.

College Lesson No. 6: No matter how talented or important you believe you are, there’s always someone just as talented and important waiting to take your place. College is full of 22-year-old has-beens. Just remember, there’s always somewhere else to move on to. You just have to know when to move on.

College Lesson No. 7: Sometimes good friendships just die off. It’s no one’s fault, you just stop being as close as you once were.

College Lesson No. 8: When you’re looking for a job, writing papers becomes extremely unimportant. As does going to class. Sorry about that, professors.

College Lesson No. 9: What you will carry with you, what will actually shape you, are your memories. Like how the campus looks at 3 a.m. when you’re walking home. The feeling of standing next to your friend as he marries the girl of his dreams. Getting to watch someone you are close to stand on stage and sing the song she was born to sing.

Tasting elation, and loneliness, and pain and love, all in the same week.

If college has accomplished anything, it’s that I’m not the same person who showed up at orientation that August four years ago. I’m very thankful for that.

Thanks to everyone who has taken this journey by my side. I am who I am because of something you were, or are. And I’m sorry to those I hurt along the way. Please understand that I had a lot to learn along the way, and still a lot more lies ahead.

That is, I think, what college ultimately teaches you — still more lies ahead.

John-Mark Day is a graduating senior religion and news-editorial journalism major from St. Joseph, Mo. He can be reached at (j.m.day2@tcu.edu), especially by those with job offers.