It’s my third semester here at the University of Florida, and I’m sitting in a lecture hall at 4 p.m,, my eyes glazing over as I stare at my notes from Target Copy. Our professor slowly works out problems for us with an overhead projector, and I methodically copy her blocky handwriting in between checking 50 different forms of social media every three minutes.
I remember the moment of pure desperation during preview week before we came to college, where we were all first faced with the most terrifying question: What are going we to do with our lives?
This was the tipping point, the moment where I joined the dark abyss of the unknown along with every other college student. We all felt very alone in the beginning, like we’re the only ones who don’t know what the future holds, but we eventually realized that we’re all in this together, choosing majors at random and devoting our time and focus to Study Edge rather than actually absorbing the material.
In this math class required for my accounting degree, we’ve learned a million different ways to take a derivative, antiderivative, separate differential equations and all kinds of other random calculus-based problems. As I sit here thinking about the class, it’s a struggle to even put into words what I’m learning, most likely because I have absolutely no idea what I’m learning. We freshman and sophomores are expected to struggle through a four semester period of giant lecture halls and learn how to take a certain professor’s test rather than actually comprehend the material.
So what is all of this for? Am I actually learning anything?
I’ve discussed the gray area between simply getting the grades and coming to college to actually learn with my friends before and they tried to shed some light. I asked if the two extremes went hand-in-hand, and the response was a resounding “no.” One of my friends pointed out that it’s most likely because majors are chosen based on the rewards they’ll yield: job security and a paycheck.
“College isn’t necessarily about getting a degree and it won’t be until your last two years that your courses are actually crucial to your major,” another friend said.
I was initially shocked because school has always been the only thing that gave me purpose. It was the reason I lived and breathed; it kept me distracted from thinking about how meaningless my days actually are. And as I sat there thinking about how I’ve already earned 49 credit hours yet have learned absolutely nothing about accounting, I realized that maybe it really isn’t as bad as it seems.
All of the time I’ve spent here grinding my teeth in class and leaving a double block with only a few tokens of information isn’t the worst thing in the world, because the point my friend made was right: Your first two years of college are more about learning who you are and what you like rather than focusing on your degree. We are too old for the high school environment, but we’re also too young for the real world.
This is the first time we’re expected to really take care of ourselves, a task much more time consuming than Man’s Food. It would be absolutely ideal if we were more excited about learning and every class we took was actually worth something, but this small obligation of getting good grades gives us time to find ourselves.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s really no need to stress about how pointless school can be or get annoyed about those few hours of studying we have to put in.
When my parents ask me over dinner if I’ve learned anything new, I tell them I have, though only a small portion of it comes from inside the classroom. Most of what I’ve learned is about myself and other people and this is valuable information that will prepare me for not only my last two years of undergrad, but for the journey into the real world. So sit back, relax and keep on floating through those general education credits, because at the very least, you’ll learn a thing or two about yourself along the way.
