College just got easier!
You have spent the last year or two of your life trying to get in, and now you need to know what to do once you get there. To make the most of it, you’ll need to Carpe College! By seizing all the wonderful opportunities, both inside and outside the classroom, you can make your college years the rich and life-changing experience you’ve always dreamed of. But you need a plan, an approach, and some perspective. From your dorm room to your classroom, Carpe College! has you covered. Whether it’s planning your week, poppin’ in to see your professor, or partying like you know what you’re doing, with this book, you’ll know you have what it takes to truly seize your college experience!
So, what the heck is Carpe College!?
New arrivals.
Well, it’s certainly not a perfect Latin translation because that would mean ‘Seize the College!’ and inciting riots won’t get any of us anywhere. So let’s simply settle on a fast and loose translation: ‘Seize the college experience (in its entirety).’
Carpe College! is an idea. An approach. An M.O. A habit. A way of embracing everything college life throws your way – academics and the rest – and doing so with vigor. Or, as President Kennedy would have said, “with VIGAH!” It’s also an exploration, a continual experiment, a series of tests and trials and the dipping of many toes into many different waters in an attempt to uncover who you are and how you fit… with others… with the world at large… with your own notion of who you’d like to become.
This is Carpe College!
It’s being liberated and taking risks. It’s being smart about managing those risks, not cowering before them, but recognizing that all the best learning comes from risk-taking and results. Risk-taking and results. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s about reinventing yourself and finding yourself, knowing that you’re still emerging and growing all along.
It encompasses both the LEARNING and the LIVING parts of college, never easy to separate, but we’ll do so for our purposes. We’ll explore strategies and stories that encourage you to actively and intentionally seek success in all facets of the experience. We’ll toss out some ideas that you can try in your first semester, or blow off until second semester, or revisit after your first year (if you come crawling back with your tail between your legs because you didn’t listen the first time). And we’ll predicate all of it around our mantra:
‘Know Thyself. Have a Plan. Assume No One Else Cares.’
Whether it’s your academic life or your life outside the classroom, this mantra will serve as a friendly reminder and useful guide.
In the end, the ultimate goal of Carpe College! is to help you make the most of your college experience. Your college years will fly by as quickly as high school did, and you’ll want to embrace every rich bit of it. The end result, we hope, is that you can experience what Joseph Campbell called ‘Finding Your Bliss.’ By actively and intentionally embracing the college experience, taking some risks, getting out of your comfort zone and trying lots of stuff, we want you to find what makes you happy.
Seize it!
In fact, that’s what Carpe College! is all about. Beginning the next phase of your life – the college phase – seizing every moment and every opportunity in order to find, and ultimately follow, your bliss.
Why do we need Carpe College?
There are millions of miserable, middle-aged people in the world, and I’m assuming you don’t want to end up like them. That’s what this book is about: developing habits and a plan to become…. well…. not miserable.
Pretty lofty, eh?!
For many, college is the first real and significant step toward finding one’s place in the universe, to ‘following one’s bliss.’ So, if you prefer bliss to misery, you’ll need to embrace the college experience in all its glory. You’ll need to have a sense of yourself, your goals, your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll need to have an active approach to tackling schoolwork, meeting new friends, and expanding your horizons. You’ll need to start dreaming your own dreams, rather than those of your parents. You’ll need to develop keen internal radar that helps you distinguish between opportunities and distractions. You’ll need balance. You’ll need to learn to trust yourself and to forgive yourself and to get back on your horse and take some more risk. You’ll need to reflect seriously and often on the question: “Who am I, where am I going, why and how?”
(Oh yeah, and parents will want you to find a job, so we’ll cover that, too.)
How to use Carpe College!
This book is about looking forward.
By the time you’re reading this book, I’m guessing you already know which college you’ll be attending. Leading up to that point, I’m guessing you already received plenty of advice about applying to college and choosing a college and getting into a college. I’m guessing you read some books, checked out some websites, and listened to a whole lot of advice from teachers, guidance counselors, parents and other kids. And I’m guessing that was a kind of ‘fun’ you’d never experienced before in your life. So, now that it’s over, it’s time to take a deep breath, relax and enjoy, bask in the glory of all your hard work paying off, and begin to look forward.
A Caveat Before You Carpe….. (What’s with the weird Latin talk!)
Essentially, this means that there’s a warning before we begin, and that warning is…
Everyone who ever went to college will have an opinion about it.
Riding shotgun with Dr. Seuss!
Now, I’m just one guy with some thoughts, some ideas, some perspective to share. And, because I’m me, I think you should listen to me. But because I’m just one guy, you should listen to everyone else, too. The best strategy for you as a young person heading off to college is to reach out to as many people and resources as possible — parents, aunts, uncles, older sibs, the neighbor a few doors down who’s a couple of years ahead of you — and listen to ‘em all. Acknowledge that they ALL have value. Note the similarities and differences in what you’re hearing, tuck it all away into your memory bank, and take it with you to school. You’ll try some stuff, learn from it, listen some more, and try again. You’ll try to make sense of it from there, and you’ll be making up your own mind through it all.
Welcome to the adult world of trying to figure it out as you go.
Treat everything you read in Carpe College! as fodder for examination and discussion. It’s food for thought, grist for the mill, fat to chew, shit to shoot, hash to sling…. It’s all fair game for debate and dissection. Your parents may not agree with some of my perspectives. They might think I’m an idiot. Perfect. More stuff for you guys to talk about. It’s all fine. It’s all good.
What’s important is that it’s yours, and that you’re the one doing the Carpe-ing.
Let us begin.