14 Dec 2011

{Guest Post} by Veronica Lim


College: How I learned more about life than about English Literature

Welcome to the Leadership/Hipster/Jesu-What Tradition Culture of SU

Snippets of “Coeur D’Alene” by the Head and the Heart had been playing for a few moments every five minutes for over an hour that morning. My body involuntarily pressed snooze every time the chorus chimed in on my sleep. Every time the alarm would set, I told myself just a few more seconds before I would start the day. But instead, I fell back asleep over 12 times before convincing myself starting the day would be wise.

Weeks prior to this, I woke up at 9:30am on Saturday thinking I was late for class before realizing it wasn’t Friday. But in the few seconds where panic usually arises, I stayed calm. There’s a good chance these incidences happen to nearly every college student—especially all of my friends. These moments are rather indicative of my years in college. What I’ve learned while going to SU is how to be a person and waking up late contributes to that more than I have ever expected. As I write this to share with Katie and her readers, it’s getting late and the dark circles underneath my eyes grow darker by the second. But nonetheless, these are the moments I want to share with YOU. Why? Because these are the thoughts that I think best explain how college ought to be defined.

Here’s my top 10 list of lessons learned in college (not in any specific order):

  • Do what you want. Follow your heart. Live the dream. Insert whichever cliché fits this.
  • Broken hearts teach you what type of person you want to be not who to become for someone else.
  • Patience is a much more significant trait than you may realize.
  • Having an idealistic pre college graduate outlook on life is what most people strive for, be thankful if you have it.
  • Life is short, don’t spend it reading a book you hate, hanging out with people who don’t love life, taking classes that hurt your body and soul, going to work at places that make you want to punch a dolphin
  • It’s all about the adventure. So take a chance.
  • Success is relative. Failing is relative. No one can define these terms for you but yourself.
  • Building community is possible anywhere as long as you truly want it.
  • Coffee and tea are a godsend. Not for its caffeine content but for its capacity to persuade people to sit down with one another to share a conversation early in the morning, in the middle of the afternoon, or late at night.
  • Real life is NOT a stellar GPA, it is NOT about being the best, it is NOT having a career that makes bank, it’s about finding people to make this statement true: Home is wherever I’m with you.

When it comes down to it, here’s what you need to know about Seattle University: if you’re a hipster, if you like leadership, if you like playing Magic, if you only like D1 basketball, if you like choreographed dances, if you love retreats, if you want to be a lawyer, business owner, nurse, physicist, or Jesuit, this is the place for you. So what I’m saying is, I learned that college lets you be anyone you want. It’s not about learning how to be better at whatever major I should be studying, it’s about learning how to appreciate life and not take community for granted because I would have never survived a new city with strangers without it.

An English Lit major at Seattle University, Veronica is a good friend of mine who loves everything that has to do with art and media. She has been a huge supporter of Yow Yow from the very beginning, which means I value her input greatly. We first met our freshman year here at college having our first class together, but it wasn’t until we became co-workers that we truly bonded. Veronica is currently the regular photographer behind the “Space Girl Street Style” posts.

Posted on December 14, in -