Growing up?

College is a time for maturation. During these years, students are expected to find themselves; organize their life and get the things they want out of it.

And in the meantime, get drunk, make mistakes and wake up on couches where they don't remember falling asleep.

Now, wait a minute. Doesn't this directly contradict the whole maturation thing? Partying three nights a week, battling Sunday morning headaches, and putting off that essay due on Monday until 2 a.m. the night before does not seem to be the best way to achieve goals and make career decisions.

Since walking onto beloved South Campus slightly over a year ago, I've experienced a wide variety of situations. From late-night rushes to the hospital for friends who took one too many shots of Jack Daniels, to relationships that slowly and painfully faded away due directly to the weekly sea of fellow students crowding a frat basement, all dressed with the intention of spending the night somewhere other than their dorm room, it has been something to remember.

And, after a year of these memories, I feel tougher for the taking. Without fighting through these rounds, right hooking my way out of countless corners, how would I be able to handle what comes after all of this? If college is too much for me, what the hell am I going to do when real life rolls around?

Unfortunately, this year has shown me much of the same situations, and I somehow still feel unequipped to handle it.

What's going on here? Shouldn't I feel up to these challenges? Why do I still feel trapped between expensive books and costly liquor?

The truth of the matter is that this whole experience is not a series of rounds, or bouts, or obstacles. This whole thing is a sloppy, silly, over-dramatic, over-serious, intellectual, blurry, stoned train wreck of an event that will leave many with new thoughts and new knowledge about subjects that were once thought to be black and white.

An easy example of this is in the classroom. In high school, the basic rule of thumb was that the teacher gave out assignments, which were mostly boring and rarely helpful. Said instructors would teach the material the state required that they teach, allowing the students to finish the homework during these 20-minute lectures during class. But doing homework in class wasn't a big deal, as long as you weren't sleeping.

In college, teachers assign what they want, most of them expecting class participation and original opinions formed from reading the material. Are they insane? These guys don't care about losing their job because of failing students. For the most part, if a student fails, he clearly just wasn't willing to give it his all.

On the other side of the spectrum there are social relationships. What changes between high school and college in terms of friendship?

First of all, friends from high school go their own direction to their respective colleges, meeting new groups of people. Those kids you spent nearly every day with in class, high-fiving in the halls and cracking Chappelle's Show or Anchorman jokes, now represent some sort of past life that you will no longer be able to go back to.

Sure, there's the summer and the winter, but all these holidays serve to do is remind you of what once was; a taste of something lost.

New friends are made, new memories burnt into your skull. Eventually, those old friends become exactly that: old friends.

But by essentially starting all over again, forming new relationships and dealing with the same drama that many hoped would disappear with the eight-period days and cafeteria lunches with teachers watching over their shoulders, many students - including myself - must find a way to burn their own path while dealing with sexual attraction, alcohol, pot, idealistic teaching along with all of this high school-esque bull. How does this help to mature students, only years away from spouses and children and mortgages and office politics?

At the end of the day, all of this repetition and all of these mistakes (promised to be remade again and again) are something to learn from. While it may take the full four years to finally mature and feel ready for real life, enjoy the nights because there'll be plenty...right now, at least.