The 'Metamorphosis'

When I started college, I knew graduation day would eventually come, but I could not imagine it actually happening. My sister, who is four years older than me, had just graduated. She was old and mature. I could never be that old and mature. \nAnd now I am supposedly mature and ready for the responsibilities of life sans parental financial support. \nLooking back at pictures from move-in freshman year, I feel like a totally different person. In reality though, I have not really changed at all.\nMy tastes and style have changed. My viewpoints have widened, and I have altered career paths too many times.\nReally though, the only difference from then to now is that I have had four more years of schooling and a world more experiences. \nAnd that is what I have loved about college. It has not made me a radically different person. It has made me a better person.\nI have a friend who probably never thought that at college three of his closest friends would be girls and the fourth would be gay, but because he never limited himself, he has been exposed to the things a small Indiana town can't always give.\nWhat college allows is the chance for someone to expand as a person. It allows people to experience new things, find new hobbies and acquire new points of view. We all came to IU with different experiences and different insufficiencies. IU has helped us to fill in those gaps. \nWhat I did not realize the day my sister graduated was that she wasn't as old or as mature as I thought she was. She was probably just as scared about leaving college as I was leaving high school. She is still looking for the right path in life, but she already knows who she is. She's the same person she was the day she graduated from college and even high school. \nEach step in life offers a new challenge, and while in four months I will probably be living outside of Indiana for the first time in my life, I will not be a different person. I don't know the next time I'll see many of my friends, and though that is kind of scary to think about, it shouldn't be. They love me for who I am now, so they should still love me in one year and beyond. \nI didn't find myself in college because I already knew who I was. I am the same person; I've just learned how to be myself with new friends and new ideas.\nThe important lesson to take away from IU is that learning should never stop. We should never stop challenging ourselves to acquire new experiences and meet new and interesting people. I can't stop reading and learning just because classes are over. If I did, I would be cheating myself. It is easy to complain about classwork and teachers, but it is the structure of school that has required us to become the informed and educated people we are. If you ever stop learning you give up on yourself and you throw away the education and experiences college has given you.