FROM AGE two to age six, you learned to read, tie your shoes and not to run with scissors. From eight to 12, you learned pre-algebra, that kids can be cruel, and that boys are weird and girls are, well, girls. Now you're 18, and your real education can begin.
The next four years of your life will teach you more than any four years before. Sure, you know all the easy stuff like don't put your hand on a hot stove, but you don't know the less obvious stuff. The most important thing you have to learn as a young adult is to learn just how good you can be. Now is the time to push those outer limits and try the impossible.
In the first 18 years, you probably lived at home. Your parents were still responsible for you. They saw your grades, had parent-teacher conferences, and for the most part, knew where you were and where you were not supposed to be.
In school, your teachers spoon-fed you the things you needed to learn. Tests came and went in perfect regularity: You're in middle school so it's time to take the Standards of Learning, you're a junior, so it's time to take the SATs. You're a senior, so it's time to skip out on as many exams as possible. In any year, there are immediate consequences if the work doesn't get done.
Except for the skipping out on exams part, college changes all of that. Suddenly 200 pages of reading slips into 400 that were supposed to be read a month ago. Papers that were six pages in high school are now 20, and instead of being evenly spaced or the grand finale of a semester, three of them pile up in one week.
And yet, no one checks up to see if you've kept up with reading or problem sets. Your alarm is the last wake-up call. It's Sunday night, the weekend has taken its toll, the paper due the next morning just hasn't quite finished itself the way you'd hoped, and there's no one there to write a note to the professor.
This is the hard part, but it's the best part. You learn without even realizing it's happening. Four days later when you've slept off your all-nighter and the stress has slowly drained out of your body, a feeling of peace and amazement takes its place. You did it. Despite the drama that was unfolding on your hall, the party you could have gone to and the computer crash at three in the morning, you turned in a fabulous paper on the intricacies of Congress and managed to ace your midterm.
The unconscious learning doesn't stop at grades, though. The places where you learn the most about your skills and talents are outside the classroom, in the extracurricular activities that are more important than any class. Here you become amazed when you've settled a dispute between warring sides on a Student Council subcommittee, and your motion is accepted. You learn to work as a fluid team and bring out the best in your fellow players on club field hockey. You learn to reason through and make tough decisions in Honor or the University Judiciary Committee, and stick by them when you come under fire.
True, the paper won't always turn out to be amazing. Occasionally, your motion will be rejected handily, and someone else will be right about that big decision. Sometimes you have to know when it's best to cut your losses and just get by. But this teaches you one of the most important lessons of all: to be wrong occasionally, and bring your feet gently back to the ground without collapsing.
Even when you're planted firmly on the ground, there's no reason to stop looking up. You may have endured 18 years of "you're too young" so far; you don't need to hear it again. Engineering students have been known to design Web pages for large firms during internships. Undergraduate science students have authored or co-authored articles in major scientific journals, then traveled with faculty to present their results. Every year, a student makes a vital contribution to the Board of Visitors as a student representative. Some students have chartered new organizations, filled a gap in the University community, and have then taken their cause nationwide. "Kids" our age have received grants from major institutions to study the impact of war on families. Students go explore developing economies in Africa, transitional governments in Russia and the rainforests in South America, all the while learning that possibilities still lie out of sight, over the next horizon.
This is not meant to intimidate, or to discourage someone who's sure he could never accomplish such things. It's a small dose of reality meant to preempt regrets. When asked what they would do differently if they had college to do over again, four recent graduates responded with: "Go to class," "be more outgoing," "plan ahead better," and "believe in myself a little more."
The greatest mistake is not failure; it's failing to try. You have all of college ahead of you. Make it worth your while. Learn just how good you can be.
(Emily Harding is a Cavalier Daily columnist.)
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