Ah, youth. A time of jubilant innocence and hopeful expectation toward the bright future that you just know will come to pass. Gleeful anticipation of higher education entailed a sprawling campus with tons of interesting and thought-provoking friends and fascinating classes that engaged the very mind. Images of full lecture halls and innovative lessons outside filled my head and excited my neural endings.

What a fool I was.

College is nothing like the chipper atmosphere portrayed in cheesy sitcoms and has none of the stereotypical air of intellectual academia. It’s a school. Just like high school, just like grammar school, it’s another building with boring teachers and even more boring curricula.

That is not to say that learning has stopped since I got to college. Quite the opposite. Once I realized that college was not to be the rich atmosphere of intellect-based stimulation, I decided to get said stimulation from other sources. I took extra courses, joined extracurriculars, bought books on subjects I’ve never learned before, and watched hordes of YouTube videos on how to do everything from driving a stick shift and sewing a sweatshirt from scratch to operating a motorcycle and riding the waves on a surfboard.

And yet, it wasn’t enough.

Despite all the additional learning opportunities I presented myself with, I was resigned to the fact that I simply wasn’t obtaining enough intellectual stimulation for my psyche. As a hungry man eats to assuage his hunger and a tired one sleeps to ease his exhaustion, I searched for a way to alleviate my mental yearning. But none could be found.

Perhaps it has something to do with the systemic dumbing down of the general populace propagated by the media at large. Perhaps because I’ve learned so much in the beginning of my educative journey there’s not nearly as much left over to learn now.

Either way, intellectual erudition opportunities are looking pretty slim.

However, I’ve learned other things from being in college. How to B.S. essays and still get an A, for one. How to look like you’re paying attention while really scrolling endlessly through Facebook, for another. How to put off doing a multitude of finals until the weekend before they’re all due, then cram them all into a frenzy of homework-completing agitation.

(Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t exactly a skill, but my point persists nonetheless.)

Maybe it’s not that bad that college isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Maybe it’s okay that I’m not experiencing the whirlwind of highbrow cerebral substance that supposedly pervades the average college campus.

But the voice in the back of my mind wholeheartedly disagrees.

Society today is breeding a new ilk of acquiescent yes-men and complacent lackeys without enough forethought to contemplate the greater issues of the day. With all the problems that continue to plague the world, including poverty, the threat of nuclear war, deforestation, the energy crisis, ethical conundrums – we require a class of educated individuals with unique opinions and innovative solutions that will further the human race.

I do not plan to be satisfied with the lackluster education system I am presented with. To contribute to the contentment of society would be tantamount to surrender. The only way we can fight the everyday tribulations and complications of a complex society is to educate ourselves past the point of mere academia.

That’s what I’ve learned in college.