Today’s post is a personal blog written by a very special young woman. Brooke Stier is a Radi to Write intern in the midst of completing her final weeks of college. Not only does she work with me, she serves as president of her college marketing club and works off-campus as well. In case she didn’t have enough on her plate this spring, I asked her to write a blog about her college experience through the lens of a soon-to-be graduate. And she obliged. Read on to get Brooke’s perspective on a “do over” of the college experience.

If We Could Do It All Over…Would Should We?     

by Brooke Stier

Being a senior with some serious senioritis going on and an itching to figure out a big-girl job after I graduate, I haven’t had much time lately to sit back and take in my college experiences. So given the task to write a blog post about my senior year was refreshing to say the least. I struggled with a topic – should I give advice to high schoolers or do I reflect on the dos and don’ts of college? But then it hit me. Just the other day I heard my friend say, “Dang, wouldn’t it be nice to do college all over having known what we do now?” At first, I thought to myself, yes that would be so nice! But then I took a minute to reconsider. Would I really want to do college all over again? Should I do it all over again?

We all start out college as young, immature, perhaps pre-pubescent teenagers. Some of us walk around campus having a know-it-all attitude while others are just trying to blend in. Some of us think we are so cool when we make upperclassmen friends, and some of us may struggle to find friends.

Fast forward four years and you become young adults who are mature, skillful, and knowledgeable seniors. We look back on our time at college and realize how much personal and emotional growth we have gone through. We realize how mentally strong we have become. We start to realize those tedious required classes as freshman actually shaped us into the people we are today. We realize that we were not know-it-alls and college isn’t about how ‘cool’ you are. We realize we maybe should have tried harder to go out of our comfort zones and not worried about what others thought.

We realize so much after four years. Four years really shape a person and time flies faster than you can imagine. But would I do it all again knowing what I do now? Would I start college over having the maturity, knowledge, and experiences that I have now? No. Some may say yes, but they shouldn’t.

The whole point of college is to learn about yourself and have a few slip-ups in the process. College allows you time to figure out who you are, who you want to be, who you were put on this earth to be. College wouldn’t be college without any of that. If we started freshman year with the knowledge we have now as seniors, what fun would that be? We wouldn’t get to make dumb mistakes or fail a few exams, perhaps we wouldn’t have created the same friendships we did.

Our whole college experience would have been different.

Would that really have been as fun? Would it have been as challenging? Would it have been as rewarding?

I don’t think so. I credit all of my friendships, experiences, and mistakes to the past four years and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So what if we actually could do it all over again, should we?

IMPORTANT REMINDER: the Radi to Write interns are running a Facebook contest this week. The prize? A “box of sunshine” care package sent to the winner’s student of choice. Follow our Facebook page to get the details and learn how to get your name entered in the drawing.