There is one most important lesson to learn in college and believe it or not, it is not even taught in the classroom.

It’s 5:30 am and after just 30 minutes of sleep, I grudgingly get out of bed and put on the grey ‘T-Bird’ t-shirt as well as those blue shorts while slipping on my white and black AND1 tennis shoes that had red outlining. As I rubbed my eyes, I wondered why in the world I joined the Corps of Cadets three years earlier. This was the third night in a row and the sixth time in the last eight ‘school days’ I’d prepared to run on little to no sleep.

Who had I become? What had I been doing with my life? I got into a habit of getting no sleep and had convinced myself I knew what I was doing, but now it had become more than a habit. It had taken over my life.

During the first few days/weeks of college everyone questions what their life is about and where they’re headed in the future. Being seventeen years old, after I thoroughly thought and answered this question I discarded it and moved on like so many others. This mind blowing experience came when I tried to answer that exact same question three and a half years later.

Learning Experience

I may not have my Ph.D. or be a well renowned author yet. But I offer, as a fellow student who knows your struggles and pain, to put into words the sleepless crying nights as well as the fun friend shared days that are critical parts to our daily lives for four years and will eventually lead to our careers, our futures, and our lives.

After four intense years at this college level, I’ve found there is honestly no way to prepare one to enter college. No matter how many stories or fables told, everyone has experiences that will challenge and attempt to break their understanding of the world, and even harsher, them as a person.

Since walking out of the Read Building after registering for classes at Texas A&M as an incoming freshman, I have always felt classes at universities are only a part of getting a piece of paper and are in no way relevant for everyday life.

I was told by different people heading into college that the goal is to ‘just make it through’ and I did, I fought for hard to stay in college. Struggling to make Ds in classes like government and math and getting by in history classes with Bs, all the while studying for the test and immediately forgetting the material.

Why should I remember this pointless information? After all, conversations with my parents, who have 50 years of combined experience as educators, opened my eyes to the disconnect between what is taught in universities and what happens in the real world.

Evident from the show “Blackboard Wars”, this television show is not what one thinks of when sitting in a classroom with 20 other students coming from a similar background. Although “Blackboard Wars” is an extreme case, this is a more realistic view of what the education system is like.

At first glance this seems horrendous, it seems like a waste of time and thousands of dollars each year, but let’s delve a little deeper. Isn’t this what American society is made of today?

The Paradox

It’s a paradox of the learning world. College in nature is supposed to enhance and build on your previous learning experience while at the same time it can contradict the very foundation of said learning experience.

We are taught since our first days in elementary school to find out the best and most efficient way of doing things, yet when I tell people of my experience of working off of an average of four hours of sleep a night to be more efficient, it is criticized at best.

Here is an example that hits even closer to home: pride.

Growing up we learn that ‘pride comes before a fall’ and that ‘teamwork makes the dream work’. We are told to be a team player by criticizing stars such as Dwight Howard and Allen Iverson for being “individuals”.

Yet at the same time, we as Americans are taught to be prideful of our country (Texas even more so in our state). We are even taught to take pride in what we do. This idea is evident in the way we are accepted in to college and eventually jobs. We send in a resume saying how amazing we are and why we should be chosen.

We are forced to decide between learned ethics and thriving in college and eventually our careers.

The idea of balance becomes the essential key and learning factor of one’s college career.