Education in Life

It’s Spring Break. Pack up your bags, don’t forget the fake ID, and be prepared for 7 sunny days and wild nights. Well, unless you’re me, in which case you’d be working the whole week.

But every day’s a party. Sometimes I don’t find much contrast between my time at school and at home; school is just a way to learn more things, all of which I still enjoy. Maybe I’m not putting the right time into school. I don’t know, how are we supposed to decide the balance between school and personal fun? And is school really any more important?

I’d say the goal is to grow, to learn things that are going to help you with life. That could be a class that’ll help with later work or a passion that’ll keep you entertained when you end up working 40-hour weeks. So in that sense school is wonderful because all it is fun to stuff to learn for later, whether in free time or class time.

But again, is there any reason why studying is more important than outside interests? What about those who have trouble with that balance? I have friends who are far more intelligent than many of the kids in my classes, and yet these friends put their own interests first. They’ll go out dancing every night or write for themselves rather than for a class. And if they have a muse they’ll write before doing homework, whether or not the latter will ever get finished. Unfortunately they may not meet society’s expectations for the good student…

Of course there are two sides to every coin. If I spend all my time in classes and doing schoolwork then I’ll walk away with more understanding of the subjects where I intend to focus many of my later years. I’ll be better prepared for work, better able to apply for later education, and further down the road I stepped onto that first day of kindergarten.

But 14 years later I’m still trotting down that path. From SATs to LSATs to the Bar, the road is long. And there’s no doubt in my mind that I need to follow a lot of tangents and take a great deal of breaks along the way. If I don’t have any interests then what good will money and time buy me later? By the time I’m 25 or 30 I want to be an expert in all my personal interests. While my work skills will continue to develop slowly, right now I have a chance to really get ahead in the things that define me just as much as a person.

The truth is I’m gonna try to get A’s in my classes, and I do love the material. But I’m not going to feel guilty if I spend too much money or miss a class or two, just because I’m doing what I love. My happiness comes first. All this talk about the responsible, eager student is only one approach. A responsible, eager person has a lot going on in their life, and part of that is defining their character. I want to walk away from college with a lot to say for myself.