Current Release: April 28th, 2009 | Vol. XXX Iss. 10

College is the time and the place to make your own way

By sarah tytler

sltytler@vwc.edu

Four years ago (it feels more like fourscore and seven years ago), I wrote an article for this newspaper about what I expected from college. Cocky little freshman I was, I commented on how my teachers insisted that college involved a lot less hand-holding and a lot more  real life. And in my infinite freshman snarkiness, I made a snide remark about the lack of seven-hour-a-night workloads. Those do happen. Frequently. Oops.

I ll try to make this article read more maturely than that one did, but that would require me to have matured between now and then, so we ll see where it takes us. Back then, I thought adjusting to college meant welcoming new experiences. I still believe this to be true, and I hope it holds true when I enter the next stage of my life.

Which brings me to my next point: the feeling on campus that there are no opportunities at Virginia Wesleyan (if you do see opportunities on campus, pass go and collect $200). Between my friend and me, we ve visited every continent but Antarctica. I know your next thought:  Traveling to Africa is easy when you have an extra $5,000 kicking around. (Does anyone have extra thousands kicking around? Kick some my way.) Yes, a certain amount of planning ahead and saving is necessary.

But here s one for you: your tuition is already covered by loans, paychecks, scholarships, luck, and the grace of God/Vishnu/your good karma from a previous life, right? So participate in one of our exchanges. Madero University and Humboldt University are two of our programs for which it s an equal exchange. Don t know Spanish or German or French? Where better to learn a new language than countries full of native speakers? Don t want to go alone? Find a friend. (We all have them, mostly.) Imagine that conversation.  I m going to Europe for six months. Want to come with me?

And besides, we have plenty of great opportunities right here in the States. Do Alternative Spring Break and spend the week volunteering somewhere cool, like New Orleans. Don t want to give up that precious spring break to help others? I give you RecX. If you can t find a cool trip from RecX, you need to read those e-mails more often, and those aren t $5,000 price tags, either. More like a week s wage at a part-time job.

But you don t have a part-time job, and you don t have a car to drive to one if you had it anyway. There are plenty of jobs on campus. I have two. But it doesn t matter about the money anyway, because you hate outdoor activities and all those annoyingly fit people at the gym all the time, and you just want to sit and watch a movie. Better for you, because there are constant film series here, as well as many clubs devoted to particular interests, like anime or beekeeping. And the Wesleyan Activities Council works non-stop to provide weekend entertainment for students.

Or let s say nobody understands your passion for iambic pentameter or oxidation reduction or differential equations or the fifth declension of Latin nouns. Or PBO for the accounting people. Or the ethics of journalism. I could go on, but I got confused back at iambic pentameter, so I ll stop. I can t think of one professor who wouldn t be delighted to talk with someone as passionate about Tudor England as they are.

But you spend enough time in class and on homework, and you were tired of academic talk before I even started that last paragraph. Let s say you want to network and make connections for when you get to that  real life looming ahead. Again, Lisa Black, director of alumni relations, or Kristen Brown, assistant director of annual giving, have plenty of upscale events where you can meet those people all of our buildings are named after. You could be the person handing out punch at our next gallery opening, where you could get the chance to mention you re a junior art major to the owner of a local gallery. Or you re a communications major to the Director of Public Relations of Company Awesome. Hampton Roads is full of important people who like to meet passionate youngsters like ourselves.

Oh, but curses, you re stuck, you just happen to have that night blocked off to update your Facebook status. How many excuse/solution iterations do we want to go? Eventually, we have to stop finding reasons why we can t experience new and different things. Because you re right. There will always be something standing in the way of our goals; there will always be something making us hesitate. There aren t any opportunities. There s no money. There s no time. I m nervous. It s hard. Did anyone ever say it was going to be easy?

We go to a school where you can be 10,000 feet in the air jumping out of an airplane or 10,000 feet in the air in an airplane headed for New Zealand. And to quote my former college basketball coach:  Come on, people! We have a class that teaches you how to make beer! How are you going to complain about a college that teaches you how to make beer?!

So how did I do? This article turned out just as snarky as the last one, but would you believe me if I tell you I ve been humbled by college? That I ve grown to appreciate all the people who have endured my long chatting sessions and given me advice and encouragement along the way; that it went too fast; that, sure there were times when I sat around complaining about nothing in particular, but overall I m a better person for having come to Virginia Wesleyan? And finally, would you believe me if I tell you that college has taught me that the opportunities, and the people who want to help us, are always there?

We just have to find them.

College is where we learn to recognize where those opportunities are hiding in plain sight. College is when we learn when to listen to the advice of others and when to follow our hearts. College is how we learn to try new things and push past the voices, internal or otherwise, that tell us we can t do it.

We all have moments of self-doubt, just as the greatest leaders throughout history have. And we re all passionate about something, be it academics, sports, friends or iambic pentameter. College is the perfect place for expressing those passions. For shaping them or letting them loose. For finding others who are just as passionate. College is the time when we begin to grow into who we will be for the rest of our lives. Even though we will always be learning and changing, we are establishing a core human being around which we wrap our layers of experience.

All snarkiness aside, what I m trying to say is this: we have to make our own way, and college is the time to start.