How College Can Actually Help you Grow Up

HOW CAN COLLEGE ACTUALLY HELP YOU GROW UP AT LAST?

Lots of things we learn in school never help us in our daily lives, but going to college certainly helps, and in more ways than one. It can be the best place to finally grow up. I never questioned whether I would go to college or not. I just knew that I was ready and that I couldn’t wait. But I was lucky in that I also knew exactly what I wanted to study. I knew I wanted to study Art History and Italian because I wanted to live in Italy at some point in my life. So while all my friends were scrambling at the end of our sophomore year trying to nail down their majors, I was calm and taking extra electives. I didn’t know what I would do with my degree post-graduation, but that didn’t matter then.

Now I produce theatre, write contracts, manage personal disputes, and get shows made. But I wouldn’t change my college experience for anything.

BE SURE TO STUDY SOMETHING YOU ACTUALLY LIKE DOING

Study something you like to do. You might not always want a career in that thing, but just getting to spend your time studying a thing you love makes you love what you’re doing, which makes you happy. You learn to work hard on things you care about. So you learn that you should like what you do. And these are all things that will help you later in life.

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DON’T PICK A COLLEGE YOU KNOW YOU WON’T LIKE TO BE

Pick a college that has an atmosphere you can live in for four years. I loved my campus. It was green and calm, it had brick buildings, a chapel, a pond. It was idyllic, which is exactly what I needed after growing up in Los Angeles. I wanted a small community, a place to learn and grow in safety, and that taught me the kinds of places I wanted to live in. not necessarily small towns, but places with tight-knit communities.

REMEMBER YOUR STUDIES WILL TAKE YOU OTHER, UNEXPECTED PLACES TOO

After college, I became a teacher, which I hadn’t studied, and now I’m a producer, which I definitely didn’t study. However, I learned how to think and how to read and how to research, which have all served me incredibly well no matter what I put my mind to post-college.