You may be asking yourself, "how in the heck is college an art?" Well, I believe life itself is an art form. Something we are constantly creating, shaping, and critiquing to better itself. At the end we look back on out work and decide whether it be beautiful, overindulgent, or simply wasted time and effort. Within that hindsight lies these four to five years of collegiate life. Time spent growing, learning, and acquiring a new outlook on life. Well, actually, none of those things for most people. But it is a great time spent lounging, drinking, socializing and the occasional class or two. Now, I bet you expect me to go on about how college are the best years of your life, how they should be spent enjoying youth, taking full advantage of this time, and so on. Well, I'm only 21 so I can't comment on these being the best years, I'm still not sure what is so great about youth, and I think one should take full advantage of their time with or without college. What I'm really interested in is the juicy stuff. The stuff we all know but never read about or take pride in. This is where the true art of college lies.
First off, college is a joke, and not a very funny one. Its fuckin' expensive and overall a waste of time. This is no different from our previous experience of school. There's a lot of hot air and even more cash thrown around to make college seem like this big deal. Yes, the campuses are nice, and no the classes are not worth it. The problem is, unless you enjoy frying or lifting things college is pretty essential to landing a "good" job. This fact is hidden behind all the jargon about growth, education, and diversity. The true value of college is that it facilitates a socially acceptable preoccupation which frees up a great deal of time to do basically what you want. Don't wanna go to class? Don't. Feel like sleeping in until 2 on a Tuesday. Done. Wanna read up on Marxism or catch up on old episodes of "The Office"? No Problemo. This is the true beauty of these four to five years. You can explore a lot of shit you wouldn't otherwise have time. In addition, there are a large number of people the same age as you that may share the same interests as you and also have a great deal of free time. This is the first time you can truly learn to organize your time and figure out your priorities.
In addition to all this, you begin to figure out the great art of being broke. Now, I'm clearly being cache' here. There is a serious lesson in the limited budget of most college students; a lesson that our parents are learning due to the economic downturn. This is the lesson of frugality. While in school, we learn what is really essential and what can be done away with. Oddly enough, we find out we can be quite happy without a shitload of stupid crap as well as find better things to do than blow money on worthless activities. It is truly a development in creative living. Some of us do find work and need to keep ourselves busy to facilitate our less modest spending habits. I advise against this. It is truly a better lesson to live cheap, there is a great deal more self discovery. The essentials usually turn out to be good friends, drinks, tasty cheap food, good conversation, and leisure time. We fit reading and school work in there, though often the real lessons once again come from the former activities. This is where the growth comes from, not your Social Diversity in America class or Western Civilization lecture. They add nice conversation pieces and from time to time leave you scratching your head. However, a number of people take interest in different studies in their own time. It is the collection and clashing of these ideas that really lead to deep seated learning and profound growth.
Clearly I value the downtime college provides over the busyness of class projects and painful boredom experienced in Monday morning lectures. I have had a number of great classes and learned some good stuff here and there. However, overall my classes have been painfully boring, shallow, and dumbed down for grade snobs who hate getting an A- over an A. Trust me, this happens more than you expect. There is also the idea that these classes are to somehow prepare you for the work world. Maybe this is so in the sense that most work will be dry, boring, and repetitive but as far as providing skills to be a good little worker, I doubt it. We're supposedly higher folks than those who went straight into the work world, and though we may have experienced a wider variety of ideas and individuals, we have not been working full time, paying bills, and feeding ourselves without the help of loans. Not that this is better in any way, just saying-think about it.
Now what I've really wanted to get down to, the real artsy fartsy part of college. This is simple doing as little as possible and doing well so to free up time for more productive, life-enhancing activities. This is real deal. If you wanna get the most out of your time at a university, you need to figure out how to keep yourself from dying of boredom and staying away from worthless stress over pointless activities. First step, realize all the jazz listed above. This is a great time to plan out your life, adopt habits, reform values, open up to new possibilities, and begin listening to good music (modern radio sucks). If you begin to stop feeling guilty about actually enjoying your life, and not just on weekends, you'll learn to live a lot happier. There is a great deal of guilt placed on leisure time, but this is the most essential time for new ideas and self improvement. Second, forget about grades. They're arbitrary, have nothing to do with real intelligence, and mean nothing after graduation. Pass the damn class, learn things because they actually mean something to you and move on. Third, take chances and skip classes. Stolen time is the sweetest, just don't skip exam days. Fourth, get used to buying thrift, easting cheap, and pooling money. Being unemployed is essential to getting the most out of your time here. Why waste time and money going away just to work? You could have done that at home. Set a budget and stick to it. Ramen Noodles, PB & J, and Mac n' Cheese kick ass anyways. A lot of people get out of college and jump right back on the track of expensive status and pleasure items. You can do fine without them, keep the faith.
Last of all, realize that you are in the real world already. There is a great deal of activities you can do while away to school not academic based. If you're an artist or musician use your free time to get better, learn from other people, and try to make some payola off of it. If you like to sew, make you and your friends items rather than purchase them. You don't have to spend all your time playing X Box and watching Football. Spacing out for four years will only prove to be a waste of time and money. When you drink, enjoy the moment, celebrate your life as it is. Don't place success just over the horizon.
College is a great experience, but not in the ways most people value it. Its a archetype for a new way to live. Cheap, efficiently, and focused on growth. One day you may make 100 G's a year, but I ask you to question if it will make you any happier than you are now. Happiness lies in contentment and autonomy. You don't need to go to college to understand that, but you're here so damnit why not wake up and realize it?
You're debt payments have come in yet, enjoy it while you can. Skip class, drink beer, sleep in, love life.
Jam Econo, Stay True.
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