Tonight I met up for coffee with one of my best friends, who I also tend to call my partner in crime. This is the friend that always seems to be with me when I get into a particularly interesting situation that upon later inspection makes me wonder how in the heck I managed to get there in the first place. Anyways, she also happens to be one of my oldest friends as I've known her since grade school, and we just so happen to be graduating during the same week of graduation ceremonies (so in other words we both finished our degrees in the winter semester).
Generally I see her a couple times a week and growing up I basically had my own bedroom at her house, but due to our ever changing and hectic schedules we hadn't actually caught up in almost three weeks. Needless to say much talking and gossiping took place. She had already gone through her convocation ceremony this week, where as mine is tomorrow, and well the whole 'grad' thing got us talking about life in general, and we came to the following conclusion: I learned more about life in general during University than I did about my major.
I was (and I guess I still am technically) a biology major and most of what I dealt with through my degree was things like microbes and bugs, the history of biology, and even vampire movies (oh yea it was a course and damn good one at that). I was able to cram in dates and formulas for a midterm or final, and of course forget it the next day. Anything lasting that I take away from me my University has nothing to do with copulating microbes (oh yea that was a two week lab during second year, and no its not nearly as dirty as you think).
University taught me about life; how to live it and what I wanted from it. Sure I took labs, but ask me right now how to make up a chemical and I wouldn't be able to tell you, ask me how to work well with a TA chosen partner who scares the begeesus out of me and I can answer that no problem (wear a flame retardant lab coat and never neglect your safety goggles). If you asked me how to operate a hearing aid, I would look at you with a blank expression (I took a lot of neurobiology classes where we talked about this a lot), but ask me how to deal with an asshole professor who gets to decide if you graduate or not with the mark from that class, and you bet I am well trained to study (with of course a side of cramming) hard, argue lots and write strongly opinionated letters expressing grading injustices.
I learned how to suck it up and get'r'done, but I also learned when to stand up and argue (you gotta fight for your right to party folks). I learned that while I am fascinated with how the human body works, I have no desire to stare into microscopes all day dealing with samples from humans, I want to be with the humans (shockingly enough after many opinions to the contrary I am a people person). I learned that one should never settle because where you are is 'the only place that would take you' or 'you can't get what you want'. I've learned that when someone says "no you can't" its really just code for "I dare you to try" and if you really want it it generally will lead to a "HA I proved you wrong" followed by a well deserved happy dance.
I discovered who my real friends were. It made me better able to distinguish between who my occasional drinking buddies were and those who would drop anything at a minutes notice to help you out. You learn a lot about people in general. I can remember taking anatomy classes where the friendliest people in the class would turn snide the minute you were taking too long with the skeleton they figured belonged to them exclusively and not the class as a whole. I took a biochemistry lab where my assigned partner, while a smart guy, was a total klutz and lit his eyebrows on fire. You learn that humans are flawed, and that you yourself are also flawed (and it's so not worth arguing it), and it does not make you a lesser person for admitting it, it frees you.
University (or whatever post secondary you might be taking or want to take) does open doors (whether it be trade school, university or community college) , but they are rarely the ones you think. Yes you can learn a lot and then hopefully go onto a job in the field you love, but should the scholastics fail you (and yes it happens, so all those people who hate on grads that are still clueless go play in traffic) it is vital to know that the life lessons you will take away from it are more than worth the degree. So I say go to univeristy, find who you are, and then figure out what you want to do, because the dream job is only the icing on the cake :)
By the end of the evening my friend and I were back to talking about our job searches, and mutual friends, and TV shows we watch and the movies we wanted to see. And while yes, both of us are wondering what the future holds for us we know that we can take it on because we? We surived University, and we know that us being friends, is not going to be a skeleton stealing bitch situation.
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