Despite my best efforts to pretend that my time here at Binghamton University isn’t almost over and real life isn’t fast approaching, here I am in the last week of classes, writing my farewell column. It’s the last piece that I will ever write for this fine publication and for months I have contemplated what to say.
As I considered my fondest memories at this school and what I would miss the most, I realized that so much is already gone. Being able to get a pizza from Escape State Street or being able to see the Bearcats at the NCAA tournament bracket are already things of the past.
So rather than using this final column to reminisce about my fondest memories at this school, I plan on making this a kind of public service announcement.
Chances are that if you are a freshman or a sophomore, by now you have already heard 100 people tell you to enjoy college because it goes by too fast. You may think that is silly advice. As you sit through a boring lecture and watch the seconds tick by like hours, it is hard to fathom the idea of college going too quickly.
It becomes all too easy to forget to enjoy the present. Sitting in your monotonous class or in your cramped dorm room, you are going to be bored. It’s unavoidable. People forget to tell you that a large portion of college is boring and they forget to tell you this because they simply don’t remember.
Why would they? Who looks back fondly on the Monday nights where it was too early in the week to drink, but also too early to have any work to do? Your mind (thankfully) tends to forget the countless hours spent watching “Teen Mom.”
As you endure these boring times you will inevitably begin counting down the days until the weekend and then counting down the days until a vacation, then a concert, then summer, then winter break and before you know it, you’re left with a few days until graduation.
I’m not sharing this to scare my younger peers or warn you about how soon you will be in the real world. My only point is to enjoy college while it lasts. Whether you go to graduate school or not, chances are college will be the last time in your life you can get away with doing something that’s as stupid as it is memorable.
Grades are important and anyone who tells you otherwise may have a hard time finding a job in the future, but looking back on my last four years I can say with confidence that grades aren’t everything. When a friend asks you if you want to go have an adventure even though you have a quiz the next day, try to realize that your quiz is 5 percent of one class in one semester in one year of college.
While your GPA might drop a fraction of a percent, believe me when I say it is worth it to have that adventure.
It would be negligent for me to encourage you to skip class or get too drunk or get arrested, so I won’t say that, but I will say this: 20 years from now, when you bump into your freshman roommate on the street while you’re walking to your hover-car, do you think that the two of you will laugh harder about the time you studied for a quiz, or about the time campus police chased you through the Glenn G. Bartle Library?
Have fun, don’t take college too seriously and I wish you the best of luck.