College is four or five years of self-discovery and “becoming your best.” Or that’s at least what we’re told by our parents and college admissions counselors.
And as much as I want to believe that to be true, it’s not.

College is about fitting a mold.

The scholarly atmosphere you enter becomes a world of endless decisions.

Mom and Dad aren’t there pulling the strings anymore. It’s your life, what do you do with it?

Every decision you make in life, especially in college, defines who you are.

Every situation, whether you want it to be or not, is an ethical dilemma. Something, or someone, presents a fork in the road and you make the decision to go right or left.

It’s in our religion, politics, social issues, world issues and even in our extra-curricular activities. Take a walk through the campus mall and you’ll get what I’m talking about.

Where do you stand?

When I stepped onto campus three years ago, I feared rejection.

The fear of loneliness is incredibly powerful. I would have done anything to protect myself from experiencing that anxiety.

Individualism does not mean isolation – being alone, being outside society.

This is where the temptation to fill a mold sneaks in. The mold is safe because it’s accepted.

Walking the path society has laid out for us is a lot more appealing than walking the unknown path alone.

The mold of the “college student,” is a mixture of every stereotype that meanders its way through college campuses.

I only have to mention John Belushi and beer bongs for you to fill in the blanks on one of them.

To that list we can tack on tattooed slackers, pencil-skirted sorority girls, activists in Savers suits and jocks in flip-flops.

There are beliefs that if someone is too much of an “individualist,” people say that person can’t “get along with groups,” or is not a good “team player.”

Actually, a person who doesn’t listen to others, the person who would rather do things in an inefficient way as long as it’s “my way,” is not being an “individualist” – that person is being closed-minded.

During the 2004 presidential election I experienced this overwhelmingly realization that I was ignorant to life.

I supported George W. Bush and classified myself as a Republican because that’s what my parents and friends supported.

There’s more to political parties than the social issues of abortion, stem-cell research and capital punishment, which was all I was basing my decision off of at the time.

I was closed-minded.

It has been said that “love hath no fear,” which I believe means that if one is committed to finding the truth, then one wants to understand and know the truth more than anything else in the world.

Through that conviction you may find the courage and the fearlessness to pursue what must be done.

Stop trying to fit the mold and mold yourself.

How do you do that? How do you go from what our general society says we should be and turn ourselves into free-thinkers?

How do we become people who don’t just let the facts speak for themselves, but let the facts guide you to your conclusions?
When someone asks you why you do what you do, have the knowledge to answer the question.

If you’re going to talk it, you sure as heck better be able to walk it.

Have enough respect for yourself, and for the people around you, to gain the knowledge to back up your life.

But don’t do it for them, do it for you.
Don’t stand in line behind a sign that says, “Welcome to college, choose your stereotype.”

College is more than that.