Saturday, May 05, 2007

Reflection

"It's all over now baby blue."

Wow, so this is it. Finals are over, my lease is up (pretty much my own doing...I mean I could have stayed until the end of the month, but duty calls), and now, I'm about to call Charlotte my home...these are interesting times for yours truly. First of all, I'm sure about only one thing: I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting into, and you can take that in a couple different ways. Sure, it's going to be a challenge, which I, of course, welcome with open arms, but yet, it's a place that is completely foreign to me. Sure, it's only 90 miles away from where I live now, so it's not going to be a cross-country journey of any sort, but at the same time, I get the feeling that it's going to take a lot of adjusting on my part to take it all in. There is no structure for me now. It's not like, well, the Summer's here, and I'll start up school in the Fall. No, none of that, which is really strange to me, because I've been going to school every Fall for the last 16 years of my life. Imagine that. I'm 22 right now, and 16 years of my life have been spent going to school (72.7% if you were curious...I'm a freak, sorry). I mean that's a good chunk of time. All of it was really kind of a steady progression too, getting harder and harder each year. At one point in my Fixed Income Securities class (by the way, I just wanted to say that my teacher, Dr. Mann, was amazing; one of the few experiences I've had with professors who I can actually take away something from...the guy was/is good) and I wondered to myself "you know, this is tough, but this is it. I mean, unless I go to grad school at some point (which I might do, and if I do go, ain't no way I'm going for anything business related...of course I say that now, and things might change, but I'm so turned off by it all right now that I'm kind of separating myself from it at this point...but you never know), then that class was the absolute hardest class I have left." The next time I'm going to be learning anything like this stuff, it will be at my job (for those of you are interested, yes, I have had three interviews at Northwestern Mutual to get an internship there, but I still haven't heard back, which is bogus I know...I'm still holding out hope; so if any of you out there hear any kind of whisper of job openings in the Charlotte area, please let me know, because technically, I'm still out there). Sure, I'll be learning different things each day, but I'm going to get paid to learn, which is going to be a lot better experience than having to pay people to teach me stuff that I may never use ever again. That's what was really frustrating about college in general. Sometimes, I would be sitting in class listening to one of my professors, and thinking "ok, first of all, there's no way I'm going to have to know this...ever...and if I do, there's no way I'm going to be able to remember all of this, meaning that I'm going to have to re-teach myself everything all over again...so really, what's the point?" You have to understand that this year, my social life was put at a minimum because of all of this. I missed a bunch of good times to stay home and work on this stuff that may/may not have any relevance to my life. You learn different concepts, and spend a lot of time/sanity in trying to apply what I learned, only I apply it to a piece of paper, and not to someone's life, which I think is where I had a tough time really motivating myself to get to know all of this. To me, I'm all about helping people. So, it was tough for me to really put my heart into it knowing that I'm doing all of this just to get a consonant (and in rare times, a vowel) on a piece of paper saying if I "got" it all. See, that just doesn't do it for me. I want to be working with actual people, making actual decisions that affect actual lives. That was really the only thing that motivated me. Because of the way society is run, this is the avenue you have to go down to get to that point, which is weird because there are a ton of kids who don't go to college who are way smarter than me, and probably could do just as good of a job as I will in the future, but because of society's conventions, you have to go to college to get a jobby job, which is totally unfair, but it's the way things work, and who am I to try and challenge it? I don't like it, but it's the way things are, and it's the way things are going to be probably for the rest of time. Anyway, I finally got through it all, and now I can do what I believe is my calling: Simply to help my fellow man in any kind of capacity possible. Sure, I got my degree in finance, but I can do so much more than that that I feel like I could do anything really well and have a big-time effect on everyone who believes in me. Anyway, that's my thoughts on school itself, but enough about that already.

What I'm going to miss the most about college is everything non-college related. Sure, I had responsibilities, but nothing compared to what I'm about to embark on (actual bills, taxes, living alone, etc.). There was never a day that passed that I did not end up with a smile on my face, because I figured "well, today was kind of rough, but there's always tomorrow, and I'm young, and I got my friends here, so everything is going to be alright." See, now I have to make that happen all over again, and it's going to be even tougher considering that, when you're in school, everyone around you is the same age. Now I'm going to a place where everyone is mixed together, and you have to really go out and make an effort to find people. Anyway, I think it's something I've been thinking about, and the truth of the matter is that part of me is kind of scared about being in a new place and knowing relatively no one, but at the same time, it's new. Also, to be able to settle somewhere and call it home, it really means the world to me. So, wish me luck, because I'm gonna need all that you guys can throw at me.

Well, it was nice to get that all off my chest. Don't worry, sports will return to the column. I felt like I needed to be a little introspective and share where my head is at right now. Anyway, hope everyone out there is still going strong. Take care. Peace.

~Mell-o

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