Things college has taught me

College is more than simply learning academic stuff and getting a degree. It changes a person, a lot. Many life lessons are learned there, opening your mind to a much larger view of the world. Here are some things that college has taught me.


Well, first of all, it's taught me a lot about diet. Freshman year I gained a tremendous amount of weight, caused by both a medication side effect and, primarily, eating all the wrong things. Contrary to popular belief, a diet of pasta, chips, cookies, pizza, chinese food, and lots of cheesy things is not good for you. so over the summer and the fall semester of this year, I researched a whole lot about healthy diets, saw a dietitian, talked to my aunt who is a nutritionist, and followed through with all that advice. And lost, so far, over 30 pounds, and many inches off my waist, also due to exercising more- but not that much more at all, just the gym a few times a week, for half an hour, or going to the aikido (japanese martial arts) club, or playing manhunt and capture the flag with my friends. I went from between a sizes 14 and 16 to a size 8- even smaller than before college, where I was between a 10 and 12! And all it took was, essentially, cutting out soda, fried and greasy fast-food stuff, and limiting the cookies, chips, pizza, etc. Moderation, people, that's all it takes.

But the weight loss also opened my eyes up to something else: friends judge you and get worried when you lose such a large amount. They decided I must have an eating disorder. True, there was some ground in that assumption, since I had problems with that in high school, but this time I legitimately lost weight healthily. But they didn't believe me at all. It is true that an eating disorder never truly goes away- I still think about the calories in everything and worry when I consume too much, but overall I've been working very hard to be healthy and not slip in to a disorder again. But this did teach me that people never truly forget things, and messing up once makes people more wary of you possibly messing up again.

College has also taught me a whole lot about working and budgeting. in high school, I had some small part time jobs, but all that money essentially went towards fun. In college, though, I have a job at the library, making much more than in high school, but I have to save it- and spend it on more than just fun. I have to buy food, shampoo, food for my pets, etc. So I have to budget, and create limits to what I can get with my extra money. And, oh yeah, save some of it to pay to the college for tuition- that's a biggie. I had to restrain myself from buying that cute little earring set, or that cool action figure, so I would have money for toothpaste and tissues.

Also, it taught me about the importance of work ethic. I have always been a hard worker, doing what was assigned right away and doing the best I could to tidy up and make things nice. Some of my coworkers, however, were not like this at all. They would put off tasks until after they checked facebook, or leave trash in the cubby hole next to the desk- when there was a garbage a few paces away. So, I got promoted and they didn't, simple as that. Made some of them pretty angry. I now make two dollars more than I did when I started, and they make the same as they did, no raises or promotions at all. Hopefully, they learned something from that- so far, though, looks like they didn't.

Oh, and time management was a biggie, too. I had to learn when to say no to friends in order to study or do homework. Study! I had hardly ever studied in high school, but I found myself needing to for some college subjects. Which I didn't realize until it was too late. First semester freshman year, I had a very difficult chemistry class. I barely passed it. I had been used to getting all A's, with an occasional B, in high school- but I found that I was failing a class for the first time. I had been slacking, electing to go out with friends when I really needed to read the chapter or look over my notes for the test the next day. Finally, I realized that I had to say no sometimes. I had to forgo an evening with friends to study for a test. I managed to pass the class, but just barely- so next semester I made sure to read the books and study, and managed all A's and B's. But that was a real eye-opening for me!

And another thing about time management- I learned that sometimes, it might be necessary to choose between doing a lot of things, and doing well at a few things. I tried to join a whole lot of clubs, and found myself overwhelmed. Eventually, I had to pick just a few, and when I put the time into these few rather than spreading myself thin over a bunch of clubs, I felt a lot happier, and even scored some executive board positions- which i am able to effectively do because I set aside the time for them by only being in a few clubs.

The same thing applied to classes, too- This last semester, I found myself in a very difficult class, that was costing me tons of time to do all the work for- and even then I wasn't able to do the work very well. There wasn't enough time to do all that work and my other work, meaning at least one class was going to suffer. I realized that the best thing to do, then, was to drop the class. It would have made my grade suffer way to much, possibly bringing my GPA down low enough to lose my scholarship, since it was already on the brink from that chemistry class. It wasn't even that necessary of a class- a liberal learning requirement, not part of my major. I could simply take a different class in place, or take it at community college over the summer. The lesson I learned? It is okay to give up sometimes. I had never been a person to do that, but I suddenly found myself dropping a class!

Also, sometimes there were things I couldn't do well, in clubs or groups, but others could. I learned to, instead of trying to do it myself, but to ask for help- or even give it up to the other person. Humility, I suppose it is called. I learned that being headstrong was not the best thing to always be. A huge lesson for me, since I had been used to being able to do everything by myself, at least mediocrally. But I learned that rather than me doing something mediocrally alone, sometimes if you ask for help, the thing can instead be done amazingly. In one of my classes, this happened- I was trying to do a project alone, but couldn't do it well, so I opted to have a partner, and we were able to work out a solution to the project that made it simply amazing- much more amazing than if we had done it alone!

Well, that's all I can think of that I learned at the moment- but I can assure you, there probably are many more things I learned, and will learn by the time college is over.

'Til next time!
~Larissa~