The Meaning of College by Cody

The Meaning of College by Cody - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

Being a senior in college, I am now reflecting on my last four years. I am able to look back at everything I have completed at my college and I can say that I am very satisfied. I have been highly involved in clubs, organizations, research, and also classwork. Now that my time in my undergraduate career is ending and my graduate career is slowly looming around the corner, I tell underclassmen what I believe the true meaning of college is. I believe sharing the true meaning is the ultimate advice that I can give them because if I knew my freshman year what I know now, I could only imagine how much my college career would have been different.

I believe the true meaning of college is not about the diploma and the academics but rather could the overall experience. Coming into college, I believed that I was here only for that diploma at the end of my four years. I just needed to go to class and pass those classes and then I would be successful; however, I know now that college is more than that. College is about the experience. Now, one may be asking, “how does one get the college experience?” Based off my experience in college, I can say that the real college experience comes when one gets involved on campus. Join organizations and clubs and be involved. The more involved one is, then more they will enjoy their time in college, and they will also gain many experiences and skills that will be beneficial within the real world. By working within clubs and organizations, one can build their leadership and interpersonal communication skills. These are skills that are transferable to the workplace and they will continue to develop as one continues to develop as a worker and individual. If I would have known the importance of getting involved, I would have done so my freshman year instead of my sophomore year. By waiting until my sophomore year, I lost a whole year that I could have been developing those skills.

That being said, I got over involved my sophomore year; therefore, if I knew what I know now, I would recommend college students to learn to say no. I found that once I started getting involved, more and more opportunities came to me to get even more involved. It is important to remember that the ultimate goal of college is that diploma, and one cannot get that diploma if one is not doing well in classes. If one is spending too much time working in clubs and organizations and not enough time working on classwork, then their overall college experience will lack. I wish that I would have learned to say no so that I could have better balanced my academic and organization obligations.

College is not only about getting a diploma but also rather getting experiences and skills that are transferable to the real world. By getting involved on campus, college students will be able to build themselves for the future. However, it is important to know that the overall goal of college is to graduate; therefore, time managing is very important if one is highly involved. If I had known how important being involved was, then I would not have waited until my sophomore year to get involved on campus. Once I got involved, I got over-involved, and if I would have known that time management was so important then I would have learned to say no when I could not balance so many obligations.