Often the question is posed: is college worth the cost? To many, it may be a resounding no, with costs skyrocketing in recent years. Now, I’m not going to bore you with statistics or anything of that nature. I can safely say that to me, college was a priceless endeavor worth experiencing.
Coming out of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Like many, my course of action seemed ambiguous. How was I supposed to choose what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at the mere age of 18? I wasn’t the greatest student in high school, but I knew that I wanted to play baseball. I had a couple of coaches recruiting me from some smaller division three schools, but I eventually decided on a private school in northern New Jersey called Farleigh Dickinson. While all my high school friends were having a great time at Rutgers, I was seemingly trapped in a miserable situation, where everything was unfamiliar and things weren’t going as planned. After realizing that my baseball situation wasn’t what I thought it would be, I decided to transfer. Working hard in my first year paid off, as I was able to have better options this time around. Now, I was faced with another tough decision, go to Rutgers 10 minutes down the road or venture out to Pennsylvania, and try something new. We all know how that turned out.
My first year here, I had to make friends once more, and start things new. But the school had a better feel to it in the first week than the other school did the whole time I was there. In the fall of my sophomore year, I was able to meet a lot of people by being able to play in the fall for the baseball team. Though I didn’t make it as a walk-on, I made some great friends and wasn’t as disappointed when I realized how good the team was that year- going on to win the DII college world series.
After taking a couple of classes in Political Science at West Chester and at FDU, I knew that I had a keen interest in the subject, but I didn’t know precisely what I wanted to do.
My junior year brought a lot of new opportunities, as I decided to partake in various organizations. Two of the most important of these clubs being The Quad and West Chester University Radio. Through these outlets, I was able to really find my calling, something I had not been able to do before. I also took a video production class, where I found myself enjoying every aspect of it. Through some of the projects we completed, I was able to become more familiar with a path that I have grown to take pleasure in. As a result of the hard work I put into my junior year, I was rewarded with an internship at CBS in New York City- my big break. What started out as a fun hobby turned into something that may potentially be my career. College helped get me to that point, without it I don’t know what I’d be doing. Not that I have a job yet, but now I have a direction, a sense of purpose.
Now with only a few short weeks left in my college career, the maturity, knowledge and wisdom I have gained have been immeasurable. College teaches you to think critically about things, and I can certainly say that I do now. Yes, there may be many cons to college, like the cost of tuition, the bad food, the poor bus system here, among other things. It may be cliché, but college is what you make of it, and I feel that I have made the most of it. I can confidently say that I have forged lifetime friendships , have honed a craft, made unforgettable memories, and now hopefully have a career and a future.
Perhaps, I will regret it when I’m paying off my student loans 20 years down the road, but for now, I will bask in all that college has offered me.
Evan R. Smith is a fourth-year student majoring in political science with minors in international business, business and technical writing, and Spanish. He can be reached at LW738484@wcupa.edu
According to DegreeRegistry.org, a general MBA can be obtained for as little as $6k and as high as $120k. If students would do a little research, they would find that it is not nearly as expensive to get a college degree.