What Your College Friends Teach You That Your Parents Can't

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At the end of every high schooler's experience, there comes a time to reflect on your last four years. Obviously there's no requirement to wait until you're a senior to become reflective, but I would argue that whether you loved or hated high school, everyone has a little bit of nostalgia within them when it comes to the final weeks of that chapter of your life. Although I have already graduated high school and have merely cracked open the book to my new story at Augustana, I'm already taking note of the life lessons I've learned here so far, particularly from my friends. While they are outwardly very obvious statements, and ones that my parents have told me millions of times as I've grown up, they are concepts that I will evaluate in a new light (hopefully), and ones that I did not wholeheartedly understand until I met my close friends here.

Debate ≠ Argument  
The environment of a college classroom thrives on discussion. I'm a thinker. I'm a talker, so this environment works for me. I learned very quickly that there is a huge difference between debating and actual arguments, while also noticing that not everyone around me had the same understanding of the difference between these two forms of discussion. At home, your family knows what you're saying and how you're meaning it, at college, no one knows you like your parents do. It is very important in a college environment to make note of your tone of voice used when addressing certain situations because in an instant saying, "I don't know" in response to someone asking what the homework was turns into "I don't care what you have to say stop talking to me." It was evident even during our Foundations' class's debates about The Inheritors, or abortion, that people were misunderstanding each other and how they were saying things. Just because someone disagrees with a point you make, doesn't mean they dislike you as a person, nor does it mean that they're questioning your character. They are merely disagreeing with your position, and that's okay.

You need to learn to be lonely.
When you're little your parents try to teach you to socialize with others. They scold you for having phones at the dinner table or texting instead of acknowledging the people who are physically around you. Regardless, in Palatine (my hometown), everyone is constantly on their phones or computers. Many of the schools in my old high school district actually have implemented iPads as parts of our education system. Everyone in the school has them, but almost no one uses them for their educational purposes. We are truly obsessed with constant communication, just as the society in Super Sad True Love Story. The idea of always being in touch with other people is not such a foreign concept to me. However, when I came to college, one of my friends from Palatine and I had a rude awakening. The people we became friends with thought it was weird to be on a phone constantly. This rose the question, how much are you actually experiencing college if you're always in an electronic world? In college, you have to learn to be "lonely" (without your phone) to get things done and experience the world around you!

Not everyone comes from the same social class.
Growing up my parents always told me "There will always be someone richer than you, and someone poorer than you." This is a phrase many of us have probably heard, but not many often think about. In college you're thrown into an environment of people who could be making impulse shopping trips weekly, or people struggling to pay their own tuition. I am very fortunate to have never known struggle, come from a financially stable family, and live in a financially stable area, but I now recognize there are people I directly interact with that live a life I will never understand. It's difficult to know people are struggling right next to you and you can't help them, but it's a lesson of great importance. Learn to understand that your value of a dollar may not nearly be as great as the person sitting next to you.

Everyone doesn't look at life through the same lens.
My dad used to say, "My mother was raised Lutheran. My father was raised Christian. I was raised pedestrian." Some people are optimistic. Some people are existential thinkers. Some people believe there is no god. Some people can't decide what they want for breakfast that day. Ultimately, everyone has a different perspective on the world and the life that we all share here. As we said last week in Foundations, you may know your best friend like the back of your hand, but there are parts of their life you were not there for, and areas of their mind you will never have access to. You don't know what everyone is thinking, therefore you have to accept your differences and find people who will compliment your individuality with their own.