Introduction

When I reflect upon why I want to go to college, a number of thoughts come to my head. I think about how much I respect higher education. I think about the expectations of my parents and how much they would panic if I did not go. I honestly think about how weird my friends would think it was if I skipped college all together. I think about the cutthroat job market and how difficult it can be to get a decent job without a college degree. I think about how everyone tells you that college presents some of the best years of your life. College will no doubt provide me with a solid and nuanced education, with top educators and daunting challenges designed to take my intellectual and problem-solving ability to the next level. There are literally hundreds of reasons to go to college. For me, I want to go to college because it represents one of the most unique opportunities of one’s entire life: the time and space to find yourself. 

Body

Going to college offers such enormous appeal to me because it offers the individual all of the necessary circumstances to help connect with the elusive self. College offers the young person space away from the nucleus of the family that has shaped us. We have the space and the distance to reflect on the life experience that we have accumulated so far and where it has led us. We can have a greater sense of objectivity towards our family and our parents and can gain greater clarity about how this familial nucleus has impacted the development of our personalities and our goals. The distance that college offers the individual also gives one a chance to escape the self that was shaped by the family, which often isn’t the true self. In my family, I have several siblings that are just very loud and demanding. I think in some ways, to balance things out, I’ve become very quiet and self-reliant. Though I have often wanted to be more gregarious and out-going, I feel sometimes compelled to squelch those impulses, simply as a result of the family dynamics that I am beholden to. With time away from my family, I truly believe that I will have more of a sense of freedom to explore the other sides of my personality and to let them breathe. As much love and comfort as my family has provided me with, I don’t know that I have always felt the liberty to express my full self around them. I know that college will give me a greater opportunity to achieve self-actualization. 

Another reason why I want to go to college is because of the old expression, “going to college is 50% the people you meet.” When people hear that expression,...
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And sure that’s valid, to a certain extent. The reason that the people you meet at college are so significant is because they are part of a greater situation that has forced you out of your comfort zone. You are often surrounded by people at college who know nothing about your past, your family, your triumphs or your humiliations. It’s an opportunity to reinvent yourself, if you want, or its an opportunity to refine yourself. You can whittle away the aspects of yourself that you are ready to shed—competitiveness, pettiness, insecurity, laziness, and other negative qualities. 
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Finally, one of the main reasons that going to college is so important to me revolves around the fact that college offers one the opportunity to explore. College is four years of self-discovery, if one uses the time correctly. For example, at this point in time, I’m fairly certain that I will be a pre-med major. However, I have enough understanding of how self-discovery works that I am giving myself the freedom to change my mind. I can’t fully say how much of that choice has been in connection to how happy it makes my parents, and how desperately they want to have a doctor in the family. My parents already tell people that I’m going to become a doctor. That’s definitely something that has always struck me as a bit premature. As someone with only a high school education and limited life experience, being a doctor has always struck me as a profession that I would be honored to join and one that would allow me to give the highest amount of service to humanity. Of course, that perspective could change, and I have to give it the freedom to change. College gives me the space and the new experience and opportunities to let my interests expand. I still have more self-development to go through, and college gives me a safe productive space to let my interests organically evolve. Maybe those interests will evolve into a new career path. 

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Conclusion

To conclude, the reason why I want to go to college revolves around how I wish to develop a better sense of myself. College offers the necessary time and space away from the family and community that has already helped to mold me, so I might allow different experiences, people and ideas to shape the person I become. While I love my parents and the town that I grew up in, it’s time to spread my wings and face greater tests and trials in order to become a more actualized person. The opportunity to explore will no doubt offer my…