The End is Near

On the eve of my last day of classes as an undergraduate at UBC, I should be editing the term paper I have due tomorrow while gearing up for Block Party (the end of year bbq/beer garden/outdoor concert taking place tomorrow that is always a weird mixture of going all out to celebrate the last day of class while subconsciously knowing that the next morning cannot be too rough as it brings the start of a solid two and a half weeks of studying for exams). Instead, I find myself cuddled on my couch with a blanket, a G&T, and Friends playing in the background as I compose yet another blog post.

It is a strange feeling to know that tomorrow is my last day of classes. For the past four years, I have spent five days a week on campus, walking from one Buchanan room to the next where I listen to the experts who I have revered spewing all sorts of information at me as I furiously scribble notes in an effort to remember their words forever. I am not one of those students who was always dying to be done with school and is having a panic attack now that the end is near and I've realized I'll actually have to start working full time. I am one of those students who has enjoyed school from the beginning because I love learning for the sake of learning. I have genuinely appreciated every moment I've had in the classroom, and have even been grateful for those moments spent outside of the classroom, in the library and at home, toiling over papers and sweating through studying. As somebody who has studied the importance of education, and who has even travelled to places far away to witness the consequences of a lack of education first hand, I know that it is something that should never be taken for granted, and I have always been thankful for the education I've been able to receive. I have loved every minute of it, and don't really want it to end . . .

However, I think that graduating will be a great opportunity to start experiencing new ways of learning. Education doesn't always need to happen in a classroom. Work and travel can bring similar rewards. Now that UBC is forcing me out, I can take the opportunity to go learn in a variety of different avenues, and start checking some things off my bucket list. I'll miss being a student, but the absence of a label brings the freedom to be anything and go anywhere. And all the skills I learned at university will benefit me in whatever I do.

A lot of people ask me what I learned in the past four years. Sometimes this is a polite question. (So what's your favourite thing that you learned at UBC?) Sometimes this is a skeptical question. (Did you even learn anything useful at UBC?) Sometimes this is a curious question. (So what exactly did you learn at UBC?) The question always seems to be looking for a specific answer, like "I learned how responsibilities are divided between the federal and provincial governments" or "I learned how Margaret Thatcher influenced British literature in the 1980s" or "I learned the intricacies of the nuclear disarmament debate" or "I learned how to write a fifteen page research paper in three days" or "I learned the meaning of life." It's true that I did learn all these things (except maybe that last one) and so much more. But that's not what I value about my time at UBC. When people ask me any one of those questions, I tell them that I learned how to think.

The university setting is an interesting one, because you are being handed loads of information that you are forced to process, memorize, and understand, yet also criticize. Every opinion, every side to the argument, is always explored and torn apart. It is so interesting to constantly be thinking with an open and accepting mind, assuming that every answer could be the right answer, while simultaneously finding every weakness of that point and ripping it to shreds. Thinking with both an open and a critical mind is something that has to be learned. It isn't natural to want to see the best and worst of every side to the debate, and it takes time and practice to recognize that no issue is black and white, but that every argument is valid in its own right. You can pick a side, but you have to acknowledge that there will always be somebody on the opposing side, and they think you are just as wrong as you think they are. My past four years of school demonstrated to me that when it comes to thinking, I have to be both accepting yet critical of every claim, even my own, and that is what I am taking away from my university experience. It will, I hope, benefit every aspect of my life.

I have loved my time at UBC and I expect that knowing how to think productively will empower me in endeavors outside of the classroom. However, I can't get too far ahead of myself yet. I still have two classes, two papers, four exams, and one graduation ceremony to get through. Here we go . . .