Last year I graduated from college and for the first time I would no longer have the title of student. It was both liberating and frightening. I had freedom to do what I want, but I missed being a student. Saying I was a student was kind of a shield, looking back on it. If someone asked me if I worked, I would reply that I was a student.(BTW I commend all the students who also worked, I did it too during my last years in college and it drained me). When I wasn’t working, it was a good excuse for not having a job and it was a good way of convincing my neighbors that I’m not “up to no good”. I guess another part I liked about being as student was being in an simulated environment where you were free to make mistakes. The consequences for failing in “real life” is much more intense which discourages people from taking risks. Nobody really considers time in school real(even though it is). You always hear older folks say upon graduation, “now it time to experience the real world”. Graduation tore up my relationship of being a student like a close friend randomly deciding to move across the country forever. I missed the diversity of topics I could learn from. My last semester was filled with the following electives(because why not): Computer Security, Mythology, Renaissance Art History, Sociology of Sports, Fiction, Personal Psychology. Graduating meant that I would that I would never be able to learn about these things again(or did it?). As a Computer Science student I enjoyed all of my non-computer course more(more on this in another post).

What I realized is that I was completely wrong(which I’ll acknowledge multiple times in this blog). What I really missed about school was not the classroom experience(it was okay), or the social aspect(there wasn’t any lol), or even teachers(they were okay too). Learning was what really fulfilled me in school, and it’s why I’ve loved it since I was a preschooler. I was never really a fan of quizzes or tests which were designed prove how much I “learned”. If anything my biggest complaint about school was that learning wasn’t enough of a priority. Learning in school was required insofar as you were able to demonstrate your aptitude by passing some arbitrary test. I think learning is intrinsically valuable, where in school you learn as a means to an end.

What I realized is that graduating actually freed me from having to follow a structured curriculum. Learning did not have to stop just because school ended. This is obvious, but I think its one of those things you have to say out loud to believe it. I think overly structured schooling can create an environment that welcomes conformity and restricts outside thinking. This may be why our colleges are being accused of creating overly politically correct students. Part of why I decided to call myself a student of life is because I was looking for the right way to define myself in a title. I didn’t arrive at it by being some high hipster millenial, although it felt that way. High hipster millenial is a term I just made up to define the how the other generations see us now. Some people define themselves by what they do at work(carpenter,analyst,technician). I don’t feel like they really define who I am as a person. I aspire to be a web developer, but to say that really demonstrates who I am as a person would be like viewing the world through a straw. Being a student represents a constant willingness to learn, an admittance of ignorance, a permanent humbleness, and a constant work in progress. Every day I’m amazed by things I didn’t know or never even thought of. Akin to the insight a stoner receives after a couple of puffs. Being high off life might be the closest I’ll ever be to being high. Being a student means that I never loose touch with the curiosity that made me like school in the first place.

I think it’s important because curiosity is something we’re all born with and dies down over time. When people become older they bring along with them long held beliefs that they think are immutable. I’m just going to randomly quote Plato because I can “the unexamined life is not worth living”. I think this applies to life at different stages of life. Examining should never stop. Today I watched a video by John Green, in which he mentions his son Henry who enthusiatically point out to him some moss he found in the woods. John then mentions that his son made him realize “ with the right level of attentiveness anything can be interesting.” I’m ending this post on that note. I’m not quite sure what the right length for these should be but I plan to put some more out. The best part of this blog is that all my mistakes are a work in progress and they are not really mistakes, they are tests. (total cop-out)