Wednesday, June 11, 2003

As I watch the Class of 2003 hang their graduation tassels from their rearview mirrors and drive toward the great beyond of college, I reflect on the myriad experiences and lessons I've gained in the year since I packed up everything I'd acquired over the past 18 years and left Fayette County.

In spite of the useful and practical advice given to me by family and those brave souls who'd gone before me, my freshman year was certainly not deficient in learning experiences.

Thanks to your parents, student loans, or the Georgia lottery, college will provide you with a well-rounded education and a degree. The rest of it is up to you.

There are some things all you newbies must learn for yourselves. Like how to convince your parents to send more money after they see your credit card bill, or how many cycles in the dryer it takes for your clothes to be remotely dry.

And there are some things everyone knows before going off to college, like you'd better memorize the number of the nearest pizza place. However, I'd like to share some of the more important, and costly, lessons I've learned this past year with all you upcoming freshmen.

Confucius said it best: "Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart." Don't poison your own college experience with bitterness and regret because you're not at your dream school.

Whether you didn't get in or you couldn't afford it, you are going where you are going for a reason. Maybe you'll save up money or take out loans and transfer, maybe you'll fall in love with your last resort college choice and vow to be buried under the stadium. Either way, do and give your best wherever you're going. Don't hold back because you think your acceptance letters to more prestigious schools make you better than your classmates.

Except for a post-spring break bout with "senioritis," I worked assiduously throughout high school and had the grades and test scores to prove it. When I was forced to attend my dead-last college choice because my dream school was too expensive, I didn't think I needed to go to class. And my fall semester GPA showed it!

Go to class, however exhausted you may be. Don't lower your work ethic or standards because you're not at that prestigious private school; public universities may surprise you!

Take advantage of all your college has to offer, even if it's not your high school boyfriend or girlfriend. I knew someone this year who went home every single weekend to be with her boyfriend and consequently didn't experience one night of the college weekend scene (which begins on Thursday night, by the way) and met zero new friends.

Don't cheat yourself out of some of the greatest years of your life because you're not with the one you love. Live college up every way you can!

If you break up in the future, you will have gained poignant memories, priceless experiences, and lifelong friends to help you through the breakup. If you do end up together, you'll be a more complete, well-rounded individual and hence able to contribute more to the relationship. College is about growing and changing; you'll never do that if you're too scared you'll lose that high school romance.

Know when to let go of high school friends, and when to cling tightly. Some of your best friends will become your enemies in college or will change so drastically that you have little if anything to talk about. Letting go of those friends is painfully hard, but sometimes the price of finding ourselves is outgrowing what we love the most.

On the other hand, one or two of your best high school friends will remain in your life. I can't count how many times I called my best friends from high school, regardless of how far away they were. Ranging from "No one here understands me like you do" to "You'll love my friends here, I can't wait for you to visit," I promise you those conversations with old friends will be a way of going home again. At college you will meet people with whom you will attend tailgating parties when you're 45. But don't let go of the people who clutched you as you stood on that field after graduation.

Stay true to yourself. College is the time in your life when you are free to change as radically as you desire. Maybe you left home a loyal Gore fan and return a card-carrying college Republican. Maybe you come home toting Marx and announcing your plans to live in a commune after graduation. Your politics and philosophies may change, but don't let college's temptingly free atmosphere take away or destroy your real values. Cling to your family, your friends, your faith. College is about finding yourself, but don't lose yourself in the process.

Carpe diem! (And, since it's college, carpe noctem!) You will have 10 times more fun in college than you did around "the PTC" (you can only go to Starbucks and Tinseltown so many times), but college is also more than just partying. When else in your life can you wake up one day and pick up Swahili, or acting, or creative writing, or marine biology? So many opportunities lie in front of you: take them!

Join a club that involves something you've always felt passionate about. Try writing for the campus newspaper. Attend a protest, or a lecture. Go inside the library at least once! Go to a poetry reading, or a debate. Visit your professors during their office hours. Tailgate. Take a class you've always been interested in, regardless of how unrelated to your major it may be. Study abroad. Go to a frat party, whether you drink or not. Randomly introduce yourself to people you encounter. Go to class in your PJs. Go to class without wearing makeup. Go to class, period!

Whether you're a Tiger or a Seminole, a Yellow Jacket or a Bulldog, suck all the marrow out of your college experience. If there's anything I've learned at my once dead-last college choice that I now love intensely, it's that you only experience college once. May it be the best five or six years of your life!

Jennifer Gaynor

University of Georgia