Finals….
It’s that time of the year again: finals. Today marked my last exam before going into “finals mode.” During this mode, I become a social hermit. Unless you’re studying with other people (and hopefully, you’re really studying and not slacking off – although that does tend to happen sometimes), most of your friends don’t see you in this mode. It’s you, your books, your laptop, and your caffeine. You develop an intimate relationship with a corner in the library, and you see your bed maybe 3 hours a night. Perhaps, I’m exaggerating just a tad bit. It may not be the entire finals time that this will happen, but every single student (hopefully, you’ll be taking some challenging classes) will be pushed to stubernate (like hibernate but study-wise) at some point in their time at Vandy.
Something I’ve learned (especially this semester) is that you shouldn’t base your value of yourself upon your grades or your activities or your successes in general. You should realize that you are important just because you ARE. Something that’s been really hard about my semester is losing faith in almost everything I had faith in when I was in high school. For instance, in high school I saw the fruit of my labor in every class. Now, for some papers or tests, your grade is a toss-up and it doesn’t necessarily reflect the hours or the energy you put into the assignment/test. Also, in high school (for most Vanderbilt students), you were probably the top of your class- summa, class president, captain of your team, national merit scholar finalist, etc…, but at Vanderbilt, only a portion of the students end up graduating summa, there’s only one Vanderbilt Student Government president, and there’s over 6000 undergrads, which means there’s a lot of successful people. Thus, you should not base your value on whether you obtain the presidency of an organization you felt compelled to lead.
That phrase “everything happens for a reason” stands out in college (or it has for me). One “failure” in your eyes may just turn out to be a CRUCIAL part of how you are molded as a person. What do you do when things “fall apart” or don’t fit like you had imagined them to? What happens then? That’s exactly the question that I hope most of us get a chance to answer in college. Answering that question will help you to establish your foundation for the rest of your life. You’re going to establish this foundation independent of your parents; you’re going to go through some hard times (and my wish for you is that you’ll discover some true friends along the way).
This semester, I feel as if I have answered that question. I don’t believe in hard work or fairness anymore because a lot of times the world isn’t fair. Perhaps, we don’t get everything we want for a reason. Perhaps, we’ll end up at a place where we feel like we’ve gotten more than what we could ever hope for. Sounds cheesy eh?
So as finals mode starts, I remember that my value is not based on what I deem as “successes.” Everything will work out in the end. And hopefully, you’ll find understanding and derive meaning from every experience (however “successful” or “unsuccessful” they may seem at that point in your life). That’s what college is all about.