One down, three to go

By Michael Rowand

By Michael Rowand

A 2007 graduate of Fauquier High School, Rowand just completed his freshman year at Virginia Tech.

College for me has been more or less what I expected. I learned a few things about people and my areas of study that I did not know before, but I cannot say that I am profoundly changed. Yet.

What is perhaps most intriguing about college is that the close quarters forces you to meet your neighbors, and you often end up discussing all manner of topics. Cultural diffusion affects the minds of most students in the most profound manner, often substantially more than classes; it forces you to defend ideas, not merely accept or reject the ideas of others.

College is an odd place in that it is both more socially aware than most high schools and more insulated from reality, thanks to the layers of middle-class protection that shield most students from the harsh realities of modern life and society’s true battlegrounds.

There is a lot of talk at the start about “preparing for the real world.” That is patently false.

For most students, the real world has begun, for it is the student who makes the choices; mom and dad may be footing the bill, but the student makes the choices. With choice comes responsibility, and this is certainly what most defines adulthood — responsibility for your own actions.

I expected this, although many did not or were not prepared.

When it comes to alcohol, it is also the real world; it is available if desired, and, conversely, avoided with little affect on social life.

Still, the drinking on college campuses and off is probably heavier than any reasonable person would think wise, and certainly in consideration of the frequent binge drinking that takes place during the school week.

Contrary to popular opinion, however, not every college student drinks.

It has been my experience that when parents of departing college students think of the experience these days, they usually have one of three visions in mind.

For some, it is a golden, sunbathed time of endless freedom and serenity, colored through the lens of age and pleasant memories, and looked back upon with endless nostalgia.

For others, it is something akin to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” a place of unknowable insanity, a fearsome place of sin, debauchery, and (worst of all) liberal thinking — itself usually a sin to this group.

For a third group, it is a place of “sacred halls of learning,” where every student’s favorite pasttime is discussing philosophy and mathematics, something similar to the school of Athens.

Of course, none of these is really accurate.

Many parents believe they know what the modern college experience is, not realizing that their perceptions are based on misinformation, hearsay, or memory so distorted with age as to be rendered practically useless.

Granted, every experience is different. Still, this means that a parent will not (and cannot) know what a college student will experience once he or she is out from under their parents watch.

What a parent should do is prepare their student to be an adult.

Parents cannot make decisions for their children. If they try to past age 18, results will inevitably be negative. But they can teach their children to be adults, and make decisions on their own.

Preparing for college, including the application and selection process, is a dizzying, seemingly endless barrage of advice from all sides, from every relative and elder from near and far. A student is wise to listen to it all, then find a quiet place in which to make an individual decision.

For all the wonderful guidance and sage advice that parents and mentors give, it is the student who goes to college and must do all the associated work. Unhappy students are likely to flounder academically and socially.

Happy students? Successful students?

“We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community,” Franklin Roosevelt said in his fourth inaugural address, and though he was addressing other circumstances, his words ring true about the college experience. “We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.’”