I decided to break from my pattern today.
So often, I get caught up in my weekly routine and I just go through it like clockwork. I wake up at the same time, I go to the same classes, take the same paths, see the same faces. When I'm finished at one destination, I just head to the next. It's very systematic.
So today, I broke from that a little bit. I took a different bus into campus than I usually do on Tuesdays. After work, instead of going home, I decided to walk to the Law Building and get some coffee and hang out there. There were a lot of interesting conversations going on there. You can definitely tell a difference between undergraduate students and graduate students. Most undergrad students are just in college to get a degree. They're not so much concerned with learning, they just want that piece of paper that says, "I can get a better job." But graduate students (most of them, at least) are genuinely interested in what they study. I've thought about going into a graduate program, but I just don't want to sink myself further in debt right now.
After hanging out there for a while, I went to the business library and just kind of hung out there. Nothing major, but something different.
I think with how we live these days, we hardly live at all. When I look at my calendar, I hardly have room to sleep properly, let alone do anything worthwhile. It's full of class, work, homework, and other "important" things. But I have very little time to do the things I love and really are important to me. I rarely get to play guitar and make music anymore. I don't see my friends and family nearly as much as I would like to. I don't have time to do as much writing as I'd like. I have very little time for self reflection. I don't even have time to find a job, which is the end-goal of going to college!
I was talking to a friend of mine a couple nights ago. She graduated from college about a year ago and has since gotten a full time job. She said that while her job is busy, she finally has time to do things she's always wanted to do. She's a painter and she said she gets to paint all the time now. We were talking about how, when you go to college, some of the things you love seem to get put on the back burner. She told me to make sure I hold onto those things. She said that college is just four years of your life and it's not worth losing the things you love to an empty education. I think that's good advice. College is obviously a good educational experience, but it is not THE educational experience.
So, I'm going to try to really make a conscious decision to just do something different as much as I can. If I've got sometime to take a different path to class, go for it. If I can talk to someone I wouldn't normally talk to, awesome. If I just stick to a strict routine that becomes habitual, how will I grow? It's not worth losing my life to my "life."
So often, I get caught up in my weekly routine and I just go through it like clockwork. I wake up at the same time, I go to the same classes, take the same paths, see the same faces. When I'm finished at one destination, I just head to the next. It's very systematic.
So today, I broke from that a little bit. I took a different bus into campus than I usually do on Tuesdays. After work, instead of going home, I decided to walk to the Law Building and get some coffee and hang out there. There were a lot of interesting conversations going on there. You can definitely tell a difference between undergraduate students and graduate students. Most undergrad students are just in college to get a degree. They're not so much concerned with learning, they just want that piece of paper that says, "I can get a better job." But graduate students (most of them, at least) are genuinely interested in what they study. I've thought about going into a graduate program, but I just don't want to sink myself further in debt right now.
After hanging out there for a while, I went to the business library and just kind of hung out there. Nothing major, but something different.
I think with how we live these days, we hardly live at all. When I look at my calendar, I hardly have room to sleep properly, let alone do anything worthwhile. It's full of class, work, homework, and other "important" things. But I have very little time to do the things I love and really are important to me. I rarely get to play guitar and make music anymore. I don't see my friends and family nearly as much as I would like to. I don't have time to do as much writing as I'd like. I have very little time for self reflection. I don't even have time to find a job, which is the end-goal of going to college!
I was talking to a friend of mine a couple nights ago. She graduated from college about a year ago and has since gotten a full time job. She said that while her job is busy, she finally has time to do things she's always wanted to do. She's a painter and she said she gets to paint all the time now. We were talking about how, when you go to college, some of the things you love seem to get put on the back burner. She told me to make sure I hold onto those things. She said that college is just four years of your life and it's not worth losing the things you love to an empty education. I think that's good advice. College is obviously a good educational experience, but it is not THE educational experience.
So, I'm going to try to really make a conscious decision to just do something different as much as I can. If I've got sometime to take a different path to class, go for it. If I can talk to someone I wouldn't normally talk to, awesome. If I just stick to a strict routine that becomes habitual, how will I grow? It's not worth losing my life to my "life."
