nostalgia

I'm feeling very nostalgic for school right now. This is a bit unusual for me. Certainly I've missed college in many ways. I feel like I had a lot more going on then, and my world felt bigger. It was nice to be busy and to be actively progressing toward a goal. I've been bored a lot since and have often felt stagnant.

It's the academic side of college, the knowledge acquisition, that I haven't pined for, exactly. I didn't particularly enjoy many of my classes the last year or so of my undergrad, and I wish I could go back and redo some of it. I was taking the classes that would fill the requirements for my degree without much consideration, and I anticipated finishing in a timely manner (at the time it seemed important to me, but now it seems like graduating is overrated unless you have something to move on to immediately afterward).

I did really enjoy some of my classes, especially the ones I took at the beginning of my major. But later on, I took some that I didn't enjoy and didn't do that well in. I graduated feeling disillusioned about my college experience. I lost a bit of my faith in the goodness of learning. I felt like all I had learned was how to get by not doing everything I was supposed to.

Now, after two full years of being out of school, I'm feeling this sense of nostalgia and remembering the academic portion of college somewhat positively. I think that means I'm recovering a bit from my disillusionment. Maybe I'll even go back to school . . . someday.

For those of you who are done with school, what was your transition to the "real world" like? What do you feel like you learned most from your college experience?