What I Didn’t Learn in College

I spent four years studying everything except how to live.

College taught me how to write a 10-page paper on why we should talk about Fight Club. How to navigate group projects with people who never showed up. How to pull off an all-nighter and still manage to make it to my three hour, 8am class with a coffee and full face of makeup. 

But here is what I didn’t learn: 

I didn’t learn that friendships take effort, and that sometimes, no matter how much effort you put in, people still drift.

I didn’t learn how to recover from the sting of mean girls. 

I didn’t learn what a normal relationship actually looks like. 

Or how to stop blushing over a boy who only texts after 9pm.

Or that a “pink” flag is still a shade of red.

I didn’t learn how to say “no” without apologizing or explaining myself.

I didn’t learn how to slow down when every part of me was prepared to sprint.

I didn’t learn how to drink without feeling guilt or to say “I’m done” without sounding boring.

I didn’t learn how to have fun at a party while also being myself.

Here’s the truth: college is fun. Most of my favorite memories are of campus events, dancing at the bar, late night drives to Wawa, and various inside jokes that still make me giggle. 

College gave me structure: a campus map, a plan, a GPA to aim for. It gave me ambition and grades to measure my success. It gave me deadlines to meet. It gave me a sense of direction. It made me aspire to be someone. It transformed me into someone new. At the time, that felt like everything I needed.

But it didn’t teach me how to go easy on myself because most parts of life come without a syllabus.

There was no class on how to be confident after being criticized by sorority girls.

There are no office hours for your quarter-life crisis.

There is no participation grade for showing up to work.

You don’t get extra credit for learning how to be gentle with yourself.

The most valuable lessons I learned happened outside of the classroom. They happened in the hours where I had to figure it out alone – in my messy dorm next to the windowsill where my roommate left an accumulation of half-drank iced coffees and in the hidden booth in the library where I finally let myself cry. Those are the lessons that stick. 

I am not saying that college was a waste. It transformed me. It gave me a voice. It filled my bookshelf and my brain and my camera roll. It did not teach me how to be okay when life isn’t perfectly curated or mapped out. That came after graduation. It is still coming to me, in waves. So I will tell you this now, and I will say it like your big sister would: 

You do not need to have it all figured out.

You are going to outgrow people, and that is perfectly okay.

You can be brilliant but still foolish enough to get your heart broken. 

You can mess things up and still be deserving of good things.

Whatever happens, you are going to be okay – even if it doesn’t feel that way at the moment.

And when you are not sure of who you are, start with who you don’t want to be.

The rest will come.

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