Emily Bruzzo
Editor-in-Chief

There was once a time not long ago when I wanted to pursue a doctorate; I imagined how amazing (and heavy) that completed dissertation would feel in my hands.  But I realized academia wasn’t for me. It quickly became apparent to me that I was a creature designed for “doing” — not theorizing about “doing.” I wanted to talk to people; I wanted to be a voice for people; I wanted to provide people with information that would matter to their lives. Journalism seemed like the more logical choice for the career right out of my undergraduate studies. So, I made some changes.

As a result of these changes, however, was a disdain for academia and higher education I never thought myself capable of possessing. I was the kid who thought my textbooks’ writers were gods. I was the kid who thought my teachers held the keys to the universe. I didn’t know how to handle this sudden disillusionment that seemed hell-bent on converting me to the “Emersonian” philosophy in which I would fight education and proselytize for the cause of “education from life” — not “education from reading about life.”

I was tired of hearing scholars talk about their work as if it really mattered to people in “real” life. We live in a world that’s fighting against Ebola, ISIS and Justin Bieber getting deported; we live in a world facing serious issues. Yet the scholar sits at her desk, pen in hand, and writes about stuff like pi, and “The Canterbury Tales,” and social stratification and Bartok’s fourth string quartet. I couldn’t understand why I had ever wished to be a part of that world. Then I started working for The Carolinian, covering events like Faculty Senate meetings, and Board of Trustees meetings, and chancellor addresses; then I really couldn’t understand why I had ever aspired to join the world of higher education.

Then something happened. I understood that university hadn’t afforded me most of my ideas — those were mine. University hadn’t bestowed upon me answers about the world, or life, or how to put the right amount of milk in my Cocoa Puffs. But it did give me something that is hard to find in the “real” world I was so apt to embrace over higher education. University gave me a stage. It gave me a space to have these arguments in my head — these internal debates that twist my insides into a knot and make my brain feel like it’s done 142 pushups. University encouraged me to talk, and to argue, and to stand on my soapbox even if no one would listen. The “real” world encouraged me to get a job, pay my taxes and trudge along through life waiting for death just like everybody else.

I haven’t yet formulated how to negotiate my understanding of higher education as a thing for idealism and theories with my conception of it as a thing for personal growth and intellectual development. That’s something I’ll always be working on. But I have realized how alive I’m going to feel when I hold that degree in my hands next semester. I hate College Ave. at the moment, but I know when I walk down it 10 years from now during a visit to Greensboro, I’ll remember how the archaic brick buildings seduced me and the bohemian vibe enticed me. I know I’ll remember and immediately feel grateful for the lessons and experiences and life UNC-Greensboro offered me for four years.

Higher education sends an impressive array of people out into the “real” world. University sends out swarms of socialists, crowds of capitalists, groups of gender analysts, bodies of businesspeople, collections of computer engineers, packs of physicists, piles of physicians, assemblies of anthropologists. University nurtures in all these different people empathy. It offers us skills of communication. We learn to talk with our enemies, join forces with our friends and build bridges in a world that contains more ravines than paved trails.

Life is about living. But life is dangerous and it’s safer when you have a few years to practice it first. University gives you that period of practice. It gives you a short period of time to decide which skill set you want to hone. It doesn’t judge you, unless you need it to. It doesn’t push you down, unless you need it to. It offers great books to read. It teaches you how many aspirins to take for a hangover.

It teaches how to let your heart fall in love and get broken. It teaches you to always choose “C” on a multiple-choice test. It teaches you to stop spitting your gum on the sidewalk like your mom always told you not to do because people will stare at you with an appropriate outrage in their eyes.

Higher education is relevant because it teaches us that we are relevant. And when a society of people understand their relevancy, they suddenly understand their responsibility— to each other and to this world.