I’m never going to get to pick my favorite music and play it over the airwaves on my own radio show. I don’t have any experience, and there’s no way any radio station would just hand over the keys and let me drive the playlist.
But a college kid can do that next semester.
One way to appreciate the value of college (any college) is to think about how many things you’ll be able to do there that will be difficult or impossible to repeat after you graduate.
You can write or take photos for the school newspaper. You can run the campus coffee shop, study abroad in Australia, or be a student assistant for the football team. You can pick virtually any industry and ask someone in the career services office to help you get a summer internship. You can do stand-up comedy at the campus comedy night, sing in an a cappella group, or play dodgeball in a league at midnight.
And of course, you can learn almost anything you want to learn, and do so from an expert.
The clubs, services, programs, organizations and departments on college campuses exist for you to take advantage of them. And once you leave college, most of them are gone. You won’t be able to just sign up, show up and take advantage of virtually any opportunity. It will be a process, not just an available option. Many of those opportunities will be lost once you graduate.
Thinking about it that way will make you approach college differently. And it might remind you just how lucky you are to go to any college at all.