Where is the College Experience Everyone Talks About?

By Maryam Fawzi 

Senior English Editor 

When reflecting on my university years during the last summer vacation (that I will ever have), I realized I have done absolutely nothing worthwhile as an undergraduate. The glorified idea of a college experience is completely false, at least in my case.

There are tons of movies and television shows about the college experience. I am personally watching two TV shows about this and most of my all time favorite movies are also about the great journey college students experience.

But they have not been the best years of my life and I have barely enjoyed my experiences as a college student. This isn’t even about the academic part of university, but rather the life changing adventure that a college student is ‘supposed’ to have.

College years are supposed to change a person, open their eyes to the real world and help them enjoy their first steps into adulthood.

I have not had incredibly interesting experiences and living the student life has not at all been cathartic. If anything, I now have a very pessimistic approach about the things around me. Making mistakes in who to trust can sour everything about being a college student.

I have learned more about the negative parts of life and the people in it than I have enjoyed my life as a student. I have learned that I need to be very careful about who to trust. I need to pick my friends wisely. I need to get out of bed even if I have absolutely no energy, because no one really cares.

So after three and a half years, I’ve been left out of clubs for not being a part of the inner clique, made class friends who walked past me after the semester ended without so much as a smile, and I have become heavily addicted to caffeine.

But movies aren’t the only college experience glorifiers; my three sisters who graduated before me had very different college experiences. Two of them have told me that my university experiences will be the best years of my life, and one told me the truth, “it’s fine, it’s just still better than the working world.”

That’s the thing, they have not been the best years of my life, not even slightly good, but I do know I still won’t have a great time in the working world either. If I already think college life is an endless routine, a 9-to-5 job will definitely not be better.

So, during my last semester I am very indifferent. I am not excited about graduating, nor do I not want to graduate. I did not like the college experience I had, nor am I excited about what comes next.