Edge

Yesterday when I got home from work I found a large envelope on my kitchen table. (I don't think I've ever gotten a more official-looking piece of mail. My dad even had to sign for it.) And when I pulled away the cardboard tab, I was staring down at a letter of congratulations, a three-page transcript, and the most expensive piece of paper I will ever own: my college diploma.

The letter went on and on about how the university hoped my time at college was "a memorable one" and how I was to be congratulated on finishing such a monumental task and how they sent "best wishes" for my future. And I sort of rolled my eyes. If you've kept up with my blogs throughout college, you'll know that the last four years have been a roller coaster - to say the very least. While I did decently academically and made plenty of friends and had tons of amazing experiences, the past four years have been mostly characterized by pacing, by figuring out, by sorting through what I believe and where I fit and whether or not I want to worry about "fitting in" with a larger group that I don't like so much. Secret: I never felt like I belonged to the overall crowd at school. I always saw myself on the outskirts with the other open-minded thinkers who chose not to fit. I always felt like I fit somewhere, I never felt like a loner. But the people with whom I chose to spend my time were part of the hidden underground that made me and everyone else who joined their ranks feel free to express themselves how they wished, to be OK with not being part of the smiling, guitar-playing majority.

College was a time of being proud of what I could do and not being too hard on myself about my shortcomings. I graduated with a 3.15 GPA, which was never enough to gain back the $8,000-a-year scholarship I lost freshman year. For the past three years I've seen myself as somewhat of a failure because, no matter how hard I worked in my classes, I was always just a hair short of where I needed to be. But the experience of working hard toward a goal, working with some of the kindest people I've ever met in my jobs with enrollment and custodial services (when I think my job at Kroger is bad, I think, "Hey, you could be back cleaning showers in a girls' dorm."), learning how to be frugal with saving money and preparing for the $xx,xxx of debt that I have waiting for me at the beginning of the summer, working hard to dig myself out of a hole into which I threw myself five years ago, and ultimately patting myself on the shoulder and saying, "You did your best, and that's enough," was more beneficial to me than getting back to the right GPA.

My diploma says "Bachelor of Arts." Nowhere does it say anything about education or English or "used to be a history major." So ultimately, unless I go for a job that actually requires an English education degree (unlikely), it doesn't matter what my degree is in, as long as I have a degree. Why it's called a "bachelor's degree," I'm really not sure; but I have one. I am a college graduate - the third (I think) from either side of my family. And that, my friends, is something to be proud of.

My family and I went back to my school the other day to see my sister's last performance in a college play ("Fiddler on the Roof," I would highly recommend you go see it), and I said "no" when my dad asked if I missed being at school. Because I don't - I don't miss getting up early to sit through classes where I really don't want to be, or coming out of the cafeteria smelling like grease for hours afterward, or spending six hours at night working on homework that I don't want to do. But when my brother's girlfriend said that college was supposed to be the best four years of a person's life, I somewhat agreed with that. I'm not going to lie, college was tough - academically, mentally, spiritually. But I've come out on the other side as an intelligent, mature (at least, more mature), more-responsible-than-I-was-four-years-ago adult, loaded down with experiences and friendships that I will never forget, because they have shaped that person who I have become. Overall it was difficult; but college is an experience that I will never regret.