“The real value of a real education…nothing to do with grades or degrees”: Thoughts From a Graduating Student
Warning: deep and meaningful content.
I finished my degree three weeks ago with an awful sense of failure and underachievement; I was too exhausted to put 100% into my work and I knew it wasn’t up to scratch; I was full of regrets for not doing that internship or this extra-curricular activity: I felt like I had wasted my time. So I went back to the man who was the source of my dissertation: David Foster Wallace, my hero (for anyone who googles him, please don’t judge me). In his address to graduates, he says:
“The real value of a real education, which has nothing to do with grades or degrees and everything to do with simple awareness…You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.”
This might seem heavy, but what Wallace says is actually kinda comforting. I realised ...