A lucky batch of seniors will graduate next week and depart into the real world of graduate schools, jobs and paid internships, international travel or mom and dad’s basement. They’ll have college degrees under their belts — essentially, really expensive pieces of paper to hang in their offices to remind them of the four (or three or five) years they spent at UF.
Just kidding. As anyone who’s spent a complete semester at college knows, a degree is so much more than the sum of courses you took and credits you accrued. It’s a social experience and an emotional roller coaster marked by boozy nights and Pop-Tarts.
One of the quintessential novels about college, “This Side of Paradise,” ends with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s protagonist — a Princeton man, World War I fighter and scorned lover — voicing an iconic lament: “I know myself, but that is all.”
We now know that Fitzgerald basically wrote the novel to impress Zelda, his future wife, but it earned critical acclaim and ended up launching his career. Nowadays, he would’ve just opened a Tinder account if he wanted to get laid, but luckily, the cellular technology in 1919 wasn’t what it is today.
The book tends to be overshadowed by the glamour and grit of “The Great Gatsby,” but it’s a beautiful story nonetheless of one man’s college experience and the isolation he faces both during his education and as he tries to align himself with New York’s elite.
Obviously, the college experience at UF in 2013 isn’t exactly the college experience at Princeton University in the early 20th century. But multiple wars and advancements in cellular technology haven’t eliminated the loneliness that follows the journey from childhood to young adulthood.
Though we interact with dozens of people daily on this sprawling campus, a university education is a solitary one. Whether you’re in a fraternity or sorority, a tightly knit group of friends, a campus organization or the largest student-run newspaper in the United States, your struggles and triumphs are your own. Although a parent, close friend or mentor is around to cheer you on and act as your bridge over troubled water, no one knows you better than yourself — even when you feel as if your identity is still a work in progress.
To put it simply, as the screenplay writer of “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,” Earl Mac Rauch wrote, “No matter where you go, there you are.”
To the seniors going forth, good luck: Though you may not feel it, you’re stronger and smarter than you were on the first day.
And to everyone else, so long for now — we’ll see you in a month.
Happy holidays from your friends at the Alligator.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 12/4/2013 under the headline "‘I know myself, but that is all’: Final reflections on Fall 2013"
