college

I did this thing everyone's been doing lately called college. It isn't so much a one-time thing, since it can last for years for some people. In my case, I think that college is only going to last a semester.
In college, I have found myself surrounded by new and exciting individuals caught in the flow of expectations. Even if they are already great people, they are strong pressed to conform to the societal standard of what “is,” whatever that means.
College is like a swimming pool full of rubber ducks and inflatable pool toys. It's not a place to do your own thing, but rather a place where all the pool toys conglomerate and pretend to be things that they aren't. Rather than just coming off as pool toys, they want to be categorized into groups, like beach ball, inflatable alligator, or those rings with animals attatched to the front. The fact of the matter is, no matter how you stretch it, they're still pool toys.
I've found myself pushed in this group called the honors program. I thought it would be a challenging program dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge on an in-depth, personal basis. In actuality, we are the same as the other students on campus, and in most cases, lack the ambition of much of the student body due to our self-absorbed natures and pretentions, things all risked for the pursuit of a degree with a few extra words. Cum laude, right?
I don't know if college is for everyone longterm, but I think it should definitely be tried. That's why it's a cultural event: people come here to gain experience that is crutial to their integration in the real world. Fresh out of high school, we come at the world with wide eyes and big hopes. After only a few weeks of the tedium that will be most of my classmates longterm reality, that initiative dissappears under thick blankets of snow and layers of winter clothing.
The clutter and bustling, trivial fights and limited resources are a microcosm of the reality that has been evading up thus far in our young lives. As skewed as they may seem, the consequences of this experience are shaping our identities, and very much determining our futures. That isn't to say people who don't go to college are not living in reality. They are simlpy taking the road less traveled to the same destination.
College is a place people go to make stupid mistakes and then, after it's all said and done, they tend to forever dwell in the nostalgia of the carpe diem happiness they experienced. I think I'd like to take that attitude with me when I leave here, but rather than just think about it, I'd like apply it to every waking moment of the life I'll live.