Weekly lists #85: Favorite things about college

So I finished my Masters’ dissertation! On time! Even before time! (If you hadn’t noticed, I’m quite excited about that. Around April I was absolutely sure there was no way I was ever going to finish it. Let alone on time 🙂 ).  Now that I’ve started my Journalism Internship, though, I finally have to face something I’ve been avoiding for a while. Only about two more months, and I’ll be completely done with the whole college-thing. Help. So what better way to celebrate my return to this blog, as well as the end of the school year, than by a list of 5 of my favorite things about college?

1. Freedom

I’ve already heard many people say that real freedom doesn’t actually begin until you’ve graduated. I can totally believe that, because I’m the kind of student that starts feeling guilty if I don’t work for school for longer than 5 hours. However. Going to college, moving away from home? It was basically my first ever real introduction to freedom. As in: decided what you do, and when you do it.

Suffice it to say – I loved getting to make my own schedule. It also led to me discovering my love of planners and organisation!

2. Organisation

Naturally, this had to follow the previous one. Now, I’ve always been someone who enjoyed making the occasional studying schedule. But, you know, in high school I didn’t really need to do that? Everything just kind of sorted itself out. College however? I was all over organising that. Studying schedules: check. Weekly schedules: check. Deadline schedules: check. And of course, for my dorm itself: all the containers. I love stuff that can hold other stuff 🙂

3. People

No matter how you twist or turn it, high school is a period of your life that you spend with people who have only two things in common with you. Their age, and where they live. Sure, you might bump into someone that you’ll remain friends with. However, the odds of that happening are way bigger when you’re in a class with a load of people that have also chosen that particular subject ànd that particular college. And quite frankly, coming from “all sciences and math” in high school? It was kind of nice not to have people looking at me weirdly when I gushed about a book or an author. (although, let’s be real. That still happened even in college :p )

4. Knowledge

I’m a curious person in the most literal sense of the word. In Dutch, we call someone who’s curious “nieuwsgierig”, or: “someone who’s greedy for news”. That’s basically me. I love learning new stuff. Whether it’s STEM, social sciences or die-hard in-depth literature-analysis? I’m all over that. I just plain old love getting new information. And there’s really no place like college to get al the knowledge you can handle – possibly even more!

5. Growth

This might just be the biggest cliché of them all, but oh well. You enter college at 18. At that point, you’re supposed to be an adult. In reality, though, the entirety of the world seemed more than a bit confusing to me at the best of times. College, for me at least, was a period where I could really come into my own. You grow as a person, not only because of the people you encounter, and the courses you take, but also just plain old simply because time passes. Life happens. And few things will help you grow as much as just living.

So there you have it, that’s 5 of my favourite things about college! Now, I’ve been here for 6 years, and in that period of time I’ve worked my butt off. But you know what, I’m really happy I always set school as my first priority. It’s resulted in me having (hopefully, in a month or so) 2 bachelors, 3 masters and my teaching degree. It’s resulted in me having some friends that prioritise the same as me. It has even resulted in me kind of sort of maybe figuring out what I want to do with the rest of my life. At almost 24, that’s a pretty good overall result, wouldn’t you agree?

If you’ve also finished college (recently or not so recently) be sure to let me know below what your favourite things about college were! If you’re yet to start college, or you’re in the middle of it: are you looking forward to any of these? To something completely different? I would love to hear it!

-Saar