Thanksgiving is over and done with, leaving everyone much more full than they were at this time last week. Regardless of the origins of this holiday, a good meal is unbeatable, and I was lucky enough to get three different full seasonal dinners over the course of the break. It was a good time to sit back, relax and forget about the problems and stresses of your everyday life.
Now that we’re back at school, the harsh reality is starting to set in: finals are coming, and no one is really ready for them, no matter how much they try to tell you that you will be.
Finals are a fun time if you don’t have any. I don’t have any true finals, in the sense of the word, where I have to start studying now to be able to pass a test in three weeks. I have papers and projects, which sometimes actually can be worse than cramming for hours before tests that basically decide if you get to stay at the university.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could have Thanksgiving break forever? I’m almost at that stage. I have a semester left of school and could not be more excited to graduate. College has been a fantastic time, but I feel as though it has placed me in a massive bubble that will pop as soon as I am given my degree.
The stresses we have at school are far different than the ones we will have when we graduate. Presently, I don’t have to worry about being laid off from my job and not being able to support my family anymore. In a few years, that will be something that will always be in the back of my mind. Monetary reasons aside, graduating leaves us with the fact that we will have to have discussions that we don’t always have at school.
Many people like to say that they are willing and able to listen to another side of an argument without judgment, but that’s really not true. In college, liberals rule the school, and conservatives are treated as lepers. If you disagree with the liberal agenda, the majority of people in college will judge you for it. It’s something that you really can’t get around, no matter how good the argument is.
I’ve worked in an office setting for a financial technology company for the past three summers. I love everyone who I work with, even though the majority of people there are older than me. One thing that really surprised me was everyone’s ability to have their own independent thought processes with complex issues. Rarely is this found on a college campus. It’s something I look forward to being able to do as I grow up.
I’ll miss all my friends and the majority of experiences that I’ve had at Boston University. I know I won’t miss the liberal-or-die mindset that so many people here have. It’s unfortunate that colleges seem to give platforms for liberal issues but not conservative ones. I don’t identify as a conservative, but I don’t remember the last time I read about another side of a popular issue in the daily emails we get from BU Today.
If anything, the experience of researching and writing pieces for The Daily Free Press has taught me to be more open to other sides of an argument, because one party does not have all the answers. It would be ridiculous to think that anyone has all the answers. As the late, great Mac Miller once sampled in his song “Insomniak,” “Think for yourself and you’ll find out / That a lot of those so-called authorities are bulls–t.”
