All over campuses all over Athens they’re whispering, “Better see what the old dude at Flagpole has to tell us about school.” It is a rite of passage for students in the know, and over time, statistics show that 87 percent of students who read this annual column do better in school. No one is quite sure why, but statistics don’t lie, and besides it has become a sort of good luck totem. In 2014, for instance, a pre-business student from Acworth, Jud Fickling, said he wasn’t interested in reading what some old geezer had to say about school. He never did get into the Terry College of Business and had to settle for a degree in anthropology.
This, of course, puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the writing of this annual back-to-school screed, especially because some polls have shown that even high school students who read it experience an uptick in performance. Months before the deadline, a sense of dread descends, and the annual question arises, “What else can I say that will guide these students toward academic success?” The mood is heightened by my own realization that what happened in college grows hazier by the year.
Nevertheless, a responsibility is a trust, and a deadline is a commitment. Here are a few pearls; don’t be swinish. (Oh, come on; surely you’ve at least read the Bible.)
First of all, college, like high school and middle school, is not the next step to becoming who you will be. If you look at it as preparation for life, you’re not going to take it seriously. That view means that whatever you’re doing doesn’t really count, so if you get drunk every night, that’s OK, because you’re just experimenting and you’re not really you yet, just like if you cheat on your girlfriend, you’re just gaining life experience while you’re still young.
The point is that you are already you. You are not going to change into somebody else just because you get that anthropology degree—or business, for that matter.
Therefore, and here comes the advice part: It all counts. If you have trouble with alcohol now, you always will. If you cheat now, you’re a cheat and will be one.
This is not rocket science. You are who you are and who you will be. It’s very simple. It just means you are responsible for what you do. You don’t get a pass just because you’re in school. The good news is that you are privileged to be in a position to learn stuff and to learn from other people, and you need to balance those two endeavors. Studying is your first priority, but it can’t be your only priority. Hanging out with people is just as important, but you can’t let it pull you away from studying. Balance. That’s what you’re learning, and it’s what you’ll always need.
A couple of guys I knew in college were smarter than I was. While I got distracted from the outset, joining too many organizations, they spent their first couple of years in college just concentrating on their studies, really learning stuff and building their average. By their junior year, they had their studies under control, and then they started joining things and widening their circle of friends and acquaintances. That kind of discipline took them on respectively to a law degree and a PhD and great later success. I continued to live a distracted life and finally stumbled into an occupation that feeds on distraction.
OK. That’s the wisdom for this year. Read it, and pass it along. Then forget about it. The takeaway is simply this: You are already who you’re going to be; the future is now. Carpe diem! (And learn a little Latin.)
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