When I started my journey to get my bachelor’s degree, which for some is the sum of their college career though for me is just the beginning, I thought I knew how it would change me. I was partially right in that thought, since it did make me smarter and a better writer. But I was not prepared for it to change to me as a person as well along the way.

It didn’t happen in a drastic way. It just took my views I had developed coming out of high school and made me see how they fit into the world as I know it in the present. It didn’t happen overnight, but it seemed to hit me as if it had. It’s kind of like waking up the night after having your first joint. You see the world completely differently. With the joint, it depends on how you react to it. With college, it depends on how you saw the world before.

Some will see the world as a scary place needing taming and conquering. Some, like me, see the world as needing regulations combined with compassion along with people working together. But, either way, you will grow as a person as the years in college pass by.

When I started I was not the same as I am today, after graduating college. I argued differently than I do now and wrote differently. There was much more swearing in my writing when I started college. As time progressed I learned to use words that were just as impactful instead of swearing. It made me feel and sound better as a writer.

I also noticed that I started reading more and a little differently than before. I already enjoyed reading, but I was reading books that I normally wouldn’t look to read as well as digesting magazines at a better pace than before. That, combined with what I was learning in college, was shaping my views more, though those who disagree with me tend to call what I read fake news.

I started taking what I read and using it to influence what I wrote along with looking at what I watched through a different lens. I started looking at it more about how it was written and then combining that with how the people behind the characters carried it out. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching things still, just that I enjoy it differently than others.

As I left college I felt like I could look at the world in more dimensions than when I started. If that makes me an elitist so be it. Others I know who didn’t follow me on my journey tend to look at the world in a limited number of dimensions. I do understand why they are concerned with what they are concerned with, but there is also more to it than what they are seeing.

I see clearly where I came from and where I am now. I have grown. Not just in what I know, but also as a person. Some will like how I have grown and some won’t, and I am okay with that. I know I am on the path I need to be on and am doing what I need to be doing.

Does that mean as I go forward I will be free of people disagreeing with me or even at times hating me? Of course not. But I will stand up for what I believe in. Nor do I expect everyone will agree with that. I don’t expect to always be right either. I will be wrong at times, and I will admit I am wrong when I am once I can wrap my head around it.

It further instills in me that some sort of secondary education is necessary for people after high school. Not just for the book education but the education you get about you as a person over the course of the time you are in school.

As you decide on college, or not to go to college, remember that you will grow in more ways than just brain power. You will grow as a person as well. Even if you go to a technical school or a vocational school you will still grow as a person, even as you grow in brain power for your future career. At the end of that leave a couple weeks for reflection on where you started and where you are at the end of that part of the journey we know as life.

*Tips his hat and walks out the door tossing his cap in the air*