Searching For College, Even Once You're There

By: Hannah French

In the search for a college, I think we often carry with us an exaggerated idea of what college means, and because of this, we fail to find that dream experience in any tangible way. We’ve turned college into an abstract ideal, yet we search for it as though the ideal exists as a reality. If we, however, accept that College really is just a mindset, we can clarify our search and help make our years in school really great (I deliberately say great rather than the best, since believing in the “best years” trope makes it inherently depressing to graduate college and then face the next 70 years of our lives).

Search for the right college. In searching for a school, first and foremost you have to think long and hard about your priorities—your primary goal for selecting a college, the condition that settles your heart one way or another and drives your choices. For a friend of mine, it was getting away. So she applied to Florida and left the slow-moving, corn-fed Midwest. For me, the goal was first and foremost going to a good school, and second going to a school I loved. It should've been the other way around. At the core, I wanted a school I loved more than going to a good school, but I hadn’t thought through my priorities well. Because I set my sights only on top schools, the school I loved most rejected me. So figure out your goal. And stick with it.

Make the most of college. I think that, sometimes, the search for college continues even once we’re there. We pack so much into that one word—college. It can be so overwhelming that at times I find myself wondering, am I really in college? I mean, sure, I’m enrolled, but … where’s the magic? If you’re like me, here’s a mindset I’ve found that helps me to regain a realistic feeling.

Consider college a very expensive toolbox, and that’ll give you the right attitude going in. Want friends? Take advantage of clubs, dorm living, and the town’s social scene. Want to succeed? Take advantage of counselors, tutoring, professors, peers, and the wealth of class offerings. I say take advantage because you have to take it; nothing will be given to you. It’s not just a bigger high school. Use college. The experience has no shape or life or color until you give it your own, and your all.

Accept your journey. Finally, college is a solitary voyage—because you complete it for the most part alone. It doesn’t have to be lonely, but it’s a personal journey. Freshman year teaches us the art of loneliness, that one true lesson of life. It teaches us, for the first time, to not be taught. To strike out and fail things on our own, to learn and laugh and triumph...alone. At the end of each day, the person who is most there for you will be yourself. Prepare to be a good friend. Attend to yourself. Do one thing every day for yourself.

No matter what school you’re at or what you make of yourself there, you’ve found college when you find yourself. Remember that the search, then, is not about selecting a school, but about finding you.