I almost didn't make it to college. After high school graduation, I found myself homeless, apathetic and seven hundred miles away from any road that led to a plan for the future. What's worse, I was unmotivated, undirected and unfounded, a listless yet gathering puddle in the middle of a busy city four-way, a nameless piper at the gates of dawn. No care had I for where my tune was played, and very few breaths of expectation did I cast from out my weakening lungs.

Fortunately for me, I found a lucky star, a glistening director as bright as the clearest day. With it as my guide, I tore down the dark clouds of rain on the horizon and charted a course of life that, among other things, led me toward higher education. But now, three schools and four years later, I once again lie under that all too familiar gray sky, swirling amidst somewhat similar circumstances, bowing nervously to questions of meaning and the great preponderance of time gone by. So it is with deep personal introspection that am I writing today with the hope that I can find what going to college has really meant, not only for me, but also in the general schema of the always-accursed question, "What shall we do now?"

Recently I have been wondering, have I spent my time here only to receive the skills necessary for my occupational life beyond the magical Nittany Lion kingdom? Well, I hope so. Assuredly, without this reason college may seem somewhat foolish in purpose. But in all honestly, such skills could be quite easily obtained in other ways — trade schools, for instance, or actual work experience, most accurately the all but forgotten ways of apprenticeship. So why, then, college? Is it that I came here to receive the general education so tyrannically thrust upon me by unseen university dictators? Am I here plainly for my own enlightenment, for the benefit of my own increased knowledge, nothing more? Yes, I think a case can be made in defense of these statements, but one must also consider the burden of futility associated with such concessions. How many classes have you taken simply because you had to? How many classes have you taken that you could've cared less about, that you zipped through just trying to pass or procure an acceptable grade?

Now, isn't it also true that since your time in college you have learned about other things that truly interest you without the help of any accredited courses? Wouldn't the vast majority of us still seek knowledge on our own accord and on our own time? So then is college to be thought of as a means of force-feeding us knowledge we would not otherwise acquire in an attempt to make better us "citizens?"

Though perhaps grim in revelation, I believe such statements to be teetering somewhere quite close to the truth. It seems the attendance of college has become a mandatory process of societal indoctrination for the wobbly masses that wish to pursue a promise of something beyond their childhood delighting.

But just as the men who actually fight the war may fight for reasons other than what has been prescribed by those in charge, I believe that, as individual students, we serve our tours of duty with objectives that differ from what is intended. After all, if nothing else, couldn't we all agree that college is the last hurrah before the final realization of what awaits us all, one last chance to be as carefree as possible, to seek any and all of the pleasures we desire?

Furthermore, yet not straying very far, I know it to be so that many freshmen who arrive on these foreign shores are not completed beings. Whether consciously or not they come here to seek themselves, for they are not entirely aware of who they are or what they might become. For these people college is the grand cocoon of life, and in time a transcendent butterfly will eventually emerge into a brave new world of hope, promise and hopefully promise-full happiness. This is the real value of their college experience.

I have experienced such a metamorphosis up close and personal, and it is of my opinion that these people become more contented and better off than others, these transformers are the lucky ones indeed.

But what about those people who are like me, people that mutated into who they are during their high school years? To us college is not a cocoon, but instead more like an extra set of Legos added to the top of our ever-growing wall of plastic blocks. What then is the real value of our collegiate experience?

Sadly, there is no answer here that does not match a solution I have already proposed. I think that if you truly reflect for yourself you will find that you will be attempting to insert answers such as "I gained the skills necessary for my future career," and "I am a much more educated individual now." For some the answer may be "College is where I met this or that person." And if you can proclaim such a statement then perhaps you truly got your money's worth. But for those forced to go it alone, answers to the questions of the meaning of attending college may not really be answers at all, but instead convenient lies for the purpose of rationalizing an explanation.

As for me? I think I'd rather accept the truth that I am barely better off now than I was four years ago, barely better off than that eighteen year boy devoid of direction and intrinsic purpose. Am I more educated now? Certainly. Do I stand a better chance of securing a good job that I enjoy? Perhaps. Did I have fun? I suppose. But am I as an individual sincerely better off now? No. Now I merely carry around a larger wall with which to help avert my eyes from the distant, setting sun. Now it has only become easier for me to pretend. Now, behind my wall, I am more a marionette then ever I was before, made to dance endless until my strings are pulled no longer.