Last year, at my five year high school reunion, when I told people I was just at the end of my third-year, I may have well said that I recently saw a long dead, mutual friend. Their eyes would glaze over then, looking over to some unknown distance they’d say something like, “Oh man, living the dream. Man, just never graduate. The real-world sucks.” Now, at the end of another academic year I walk the halls and overhear the usual, “You graduating this year?”

“Yeah,” the soon-to-be-graduate says with a sigh, “Just never graduate.”

But, seeing as I was supposed to graduate in 2009 and — due some misadventures in New York City’s amateur comedy scene and the Mid-East as well as stints working minimum wage jobs while living in my parents basement– this was delayed until now, I can tell you that there’s a reason it’s supposed to take four years.

My advice: get out as quick as possible with as much as you can, like a bandit.

Let’s be honest here, no one actually looks back on college and remembers getting punched in the face by the dude who just threw up on your kitchen floor fondly. The things you ultimately remember are the skills that you take with you. Unfortunately, for our society today, the skills that immediately come to mind are all mostly contained in the Microsoft Office suite. If not then it’s probably in the Adobe Suite or auto-CAD or GIS or some piece of software or another that can be easily synthesized into a 15-week lesson plan.

I could offer some cliché here about cogs and machines, but no one reading this takes anything printed these days seriously anymore if it can’t be stuffed into 140 characters.

Any university has a wealth of resources at its disposal, resources that exist solely for you, the intrepid, tuition paying student. The trick is trying to figure out where they are and for what end to put them to. Once they’re found though, they confront us with the inborn potential contained in our hands.

This boils down to simply doing. Not as in doing one’s homework or doing the dishes. It means having the wherewithal to gain hands on skill sets.  This is not, however, to encourage a bigger push for more support of engineering or the sciences. Those fields do offer a more objective approach to the world than the touchy feely humanities, but where’s the good in engineering without aesthetics? Just as important: where’s the good in aesthetics if they can’t be applied?

Striking a balance between the practical and the beautiful is no small task, but from what I’ve encountered thus far in my wanderings, it is an essential component to leading a fulfilling life – finesse in execution. Unfortunately, attaining this balance cannot be taught, only learned. Put affirmatively: learn to learn then, start learning and never stop.

Being taught just means showing up and filling in the expected bubbles, learning involves engagement and honesty.

Whenever I’ve been confronted with a complicated decision in my life my father always falls back on that Robert Frost cliché, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –  / I took the one less traveled by,  / and that has made all the difference.” When I was younger, he would actually bring me over the framed copy of the poem hanging on the kitchen wall and watch me read it. With graduation looming, I can honestly say it has made all the difference.

From eighth grade on it’s always been: go to high school, get high marks; go to college get successful job. The alternative – trade-schools and blue-collar work – was always viewed with a silent judgment that helps explain the grass-roots pull of the tea-party – regardless of how absurd their views are.

When I see my young and professional friends, working their well-paying jobs, underappreciated and stressed I get the same feeling as when I watch the hordes of semi-conscious partiers totter in line for pitchers of bud-light: the real world sucks insofar as it is mediated through comfortable units of purchased expectations.

The trick is learning the strokes to get you out of the rip-tide.

Max Calloway was the Opinion/Editorial editor. He can be reached at [email protected].