So this college thing. It’s kinda hard.
I know, that’s a grossly obvious understatement. Honestly, though, there’s no other adjective that fits for the experience of higher education.
College isn’t hard just academically, either. Because it is. But more so, it is a trying, stressful, nerve-wracking and endlessly exhaustive social battle that is bound to leave one insecure and not a little psychologically disturbed. Not to say that it isn’t fun, God it can be fun, but for every moment of fun you manage to squeeze out of the machine, you have ten-fold that in hair-splitting anxiety. Of course, this assertion is debatable, but examine below these common collegial situations before making judgment.
The Dining Hall: This is a place in which every college student spends tremendous amounts of time. And honestly? The College Student has no choice in this matter. The College Student is poor, The College Student is busy and The College Student is going to gain ten pounds because the only place to eat (The Dining Hall) is a cesspit populated by deep-fryers, prepackaged and sugary snacks, a veritable fount of soft drinks, all topped off with a heaping dosage of social judgment and shame.
This is a rundown of the typical experience at The Dining Hall. First, after an extraordinarily long amount of time has passed between this and the last meal, The College Student has no choice to venture out from the Residence Hall/Classroom (See below). The College Student will then enter The Dining Hall and be presented with a vision of flashy and intimidating images of edibility. Said vision will present itself in three different groups. A) the Grill—or fast food, Burger King-esque fair, tastes wonderful at the moment, but leaves a greasy lump of self-recrimination in its wake. B) TO-GO—or the easiest, quickest choice that allows for the least amount of terror, easiest escape and highest levels of guilt springing from social-cowardice and exorbitant sodium levels. Finally, C) the Salad Bar—full of half-wilted lettuce and inspiring of brief pride in oneself, then, after instilling a patina of self-worth on the college student, creating a target for hostile judgment from the Other College Students who assume that The College Student thinks they are better than The Others.
The college student will not escape without being subject to judgment and agonizing regret.
The Residence Hall: The Dorm. The place of sleeping, or of not sleeping. The place that is full of Other College Students for The College Student to make merry and celebrate the awesome-ness of being College Students. It is also the location at which Sex Occurs. Also, Intoxication. And copious amounts of Hilarity Ensuing (In certain situations, Good Grades may also be a common attribute of success).
For the College Student to fit in well at The Residence Hall Sex must Occur often, Intoxication must be at least bi-weekly and The College Student must take an active part in ensuring that Hilarity will indeed Ensue. Due to the fact that an individual managing all this is both impossible and hazardous to the College Students health, the successful completion of attaining these attributes is unlikely for the common College Student. While striving to attain them, The College Student will stretch the bounds of confidence, physical endurance and psychological soundness. None of which will be intact by graduation and/or dropping out. Hence, in any social situation, The College Student will be plagued by feelings in inadequacies for the remainder of their adult lives, spurred by the experience of college.
The Classroom: This is where The College Student will do his or her “learning.” The ratio between actual learning and perpetual social agony: About 3-to-1. For every three classes The College Student attends, only one class will be contain any actual learning. Please, do not mistake this for a criticism of the instructors; this unfortunate truth is due in most part to the efforts put forth by the students. The students will either waste time attempting to impress The Others with their rapier wit (i.e. when Sex Occurs, also Intoxication and the Ensuing of Hilarity) or they will attempt to assert their dominance over the Others by displaying the knowledge previously gained by prior educational experiences. This is otherwise known as “bragging.” Any Students that do not participate in this become invisible to The Others, and then spend the entirety of the term trying to not be quite so invisible, to little or no success. In any case, this phenomena causes a colossal waste of time that is spent by the instructor both mocking the College Students for their feeble efforts as acting grown-up (all in good fun, and thrilling to watch) and by the instructor correcting the false assumptions of prior educational experiences.
Due to the pathetic state of public education, a great amount of time also has to be spared in order to teaching how to think, and in promoting individual thought via class discussion. Only a grand total of four students will ever participate regularly in these discussions (the former braggers) and only another six will ever pay very close attention to them. The rest will spend the class period surfing the web and checking Facebook. Or posting blog entries.
While the euphoria of academia is undoubtedly indulged during the college experience, and the potential for forging friendships over various felonies is nigh limitless, the exertions to this end will leave The College Student a quivering mass of raw emotions and shattered shards of psyche. Not to fear! There is plenty of hope for The College Student thanks to the fortunate fact that most employers forget what actually goes on in college and assume that graduates have actually learned things in school and aren’t bundles of Nervous Breakdowns waiting to meltdown.
