3 things I've learnt (that college classes didn't teach me)

College has always been deemed the intellectual's playground. It's a place where young men and women go to be equipped with all the tools and knowledge needed to take on the real world. We sit in a classroom for 4 odd years while experts in our field of study thrust onto us a sea of information; half of which goes right over our heads. The other half goes into pages of notes; a quarter of which we would never review again. We then spend sleepless nights trying to cram the other quarter into our heads, an eighth of which actually shows up on the exam. So other than becoming expert exam-passers, what do we really learn while being in college?

As a recent graduate I decided to sit and evaluate my college career. I came up with 3 main things that I have learned, not from the pages of my textbook, but rather through my experiences as a college student. I actually came up with a lot more, but these three ring true across the board.

1.) You are much stronger than you think you are!

 Have you ever looked at someone and wondered how they got to be so strong and confident, and wished that you had that same tenacity? Often we are unaware that sometimes what we admire in others also reside within ourselves.

My freshman year in college, as a young Trinidadian, I was thrown head first into an overpowering maelstrom of American culture, warped education system and a struggle to maintain my identity. If you had told me then that I would be able to balance all of this and more; that I would learn how to immerse myself in this new culture without losing my Trinidadian identity; that I would spend sleepless nights with my head buried in an Engineering textbook and still have time to fulfill my duties in all my extracurriculars; that I would be okay with eating Ramen noodles two weeks straight because I had no money. If you told me all of this my freshman year I would have laughed in your face. I had no idea how strong I was. Truth is, most of us don't. It's usually when our backs are against a wall we're forced to make a choice; surrender or fight. When we are faced with an army of obstacles, in that moment our strength surfaces, and we choose to fight.

2.) It's not what you know, or who you know... it's who knows YOU!

Regardless of how well you are able to memorize the facts and equations in your textbook if you are unable to create a name for yourself, voice your opinion, stand out in some way, then you'd be just another filled seat in a classroom. There's a reason the idea of networking is pounded into our heads at college. It works! The goal however is not to build up a list of people you've met, it's to build a network with people who remember having met YOU.

I learned this early on in my college career. In fact, I learned this my very first year. In high school I was never really the type of student to sit in the front row of class or ask/ answer a lot of questions, and my freshman year Intro to Biology class proved no different. I have always been an A student so naturally I was at the top of the class. I got the highest grade on every test during that semester (I'm not even kidding!!). How do I know this? Our professor would say what the highest grade was every time he returned our tests. At the beginning of the following semester I saw my Biology professor and I went to say hello. He gave me one of those looks of feigned recognition. Now I understand that you can't possibly expect any professor to remember the faces of all the students he ever taught, but this caught me by surprise. I aced every one of his tests only a couple weeks ago! At that point I realized that it took more than just acing tests. I had to be proactive. I had to be someone worth remembering.

3.) Fake it till you make it... Confidence is key.

Confidence can take you far in college! Sometimes you really have to fake it till you make it. I've seen brilliant students not accessing their full potential because they did not have confidence in their views. Conversely, I've seen students with no credible or innovative ideas reach far because they were confident in themselves and their ideas. It's important to find the balance. No one expects you to have it all together in college. Having confidence in your ideas and the ability to express those ideas is what gets your foot in the door.

I grew incrementally from reserved to confident over the course of my undergraduate career. I found that my reach, and my reward, grew far greater as I progressed from the former to the latter. As it grew, and consequently as my experiences grew, I no longer had to "fake it".