I'm starting to think of my education as a form of self expression. It's something I can control, and therefore it's something I can tailor to fit whatever I believe my needs to be. There comes the challenge, in trying to determine what it is that I need to know that will best help me become who I want to be. If you think about it, what you know is a huge part of who you are, regardless of whether you learned it in school or in life.
But I don't like to separate the two. What I learn in a classroom seems to become more and more applicable to the world around me - the history of Latin America is surprisingly relevant to what US foreign policy looks like today, while the structures of proteins are crucial to understanding the way we live and fight disease. Things that seem confined to a classroom environment really aren't so. I strangely see college as my chance to catch up with the rest of the world on what they know, so that I can be anyone's equal and then learn to help take the world forward. Maybe that's a pretty idealistic vision, but it's one thing that keeps me motivated.
I'm probably thinking about this because I just spent a while planning out what I'm going to do for the rest of my short time in college. I see myself as lucky for being here, so I want to make the most of it. After half an hour with a great advisor, I see that I really can make the most of it with studying abroad, course selection and all the other fun stuff to tack onto that.
People say that college is the best four years of your life, and while I think that can apply to me, it applies differently than it does to a lot of people. I see my three remaining years as a free-for-all to learn whatever I want, whatever comes to me, without the boundaries of money or a full-time job. Other people see it as four years to hang out with friends and get some credibility for a good job, and that's fine too. But my way works better for me, and even if it looks lame or boring to someone else, I guess I just want different things. I'm getting jumpy just thinking about spending a semester in Buenos Aires, which might require me to reteach myself spanish, or picking up a medical intership alongside a possible (?) political science major. There's just so many opportunities, and I finally feel like I have the freedom to explore. The truth is that if I kept working my ass off, I might be able to graduate early, but why would I want to do that when there's so much left to do?
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