All my life, I grew up with this idea of going to college, dedicating myself to education and being able to take the necessary steps to form a career that would guide me to success. But now that I really am taking that step forward, I realize how naïve I was to think that everything would go my way.

One of the first lessons that struck me was that the public school system is a total waste of time and energy. I had my whole life planned out since the beginning of junior high and worked hard in high school to one day become a veterinarian.

The hardest truth was that in my first two years of college, I struggled too much and knew I wasn’t well prepared for the future I had set my life for. I was forced to make one of the most important decisions of my life and change my entire career plan to something that would actually make me happy.

This awful experience at the start of college taught me the second-most important lesson and that was how to deal with failure. To tell you the truth, it was scary not knowing if my decision would work out in the end and that pressure really weighed down on me.  But failing wasn’t bad at all, because thanks to failure I was able to find where I belonged and that was in the art world.

I chose an art major as my new career path because it had been something that I have always been into, graphic design as my major and a minor in drawing. Graphic design was an unraveling series of learning experiences that I knew nothing about, but that failure just brought me more opportunities to learn from. Now I don’t see failure the same way I used to, and I think that is the real lesson because when facing failure it only pushes you to become better.

Art became something I wasn’t really expecting it to become. It became an actual journey of struggle and hard work, the dedication to always push yourself even at times when you think you can’t do it anymore or won’t make it. To tell you the truth, I am still living that right now at this very moment. And that is the beauty of being a college student—the struggle always exists and pushes you even further.

That is something I wished I had really opened up myself to when I first began this journey. 

The vast opportunities of obtaining experience, and being a part of a student body, like The Prospector, was something I wished I had been a part of from the very beginning. I used to be afraid of taking chances with my work and limited myself with just concentrating on my classes.

But to tell you the truth, these last 12 months working at The Prospector have given me more insight of the real world, of my capabilities in working under pressure and my weaknesses when not doing something I could say I was proud of.  I think that in my six years of college, this year has been the most fortuitous.

I think that is what college is all about, to learn from the opportunities it can offer but also what it brings out in you.

No matter what major you concentrate on, the essential part of the journey is to always continue learning from your experiences, the professors that will keep on motivating you and all the people you get to meet. It makes me feel a little nostalgic to think about everything I had to go through just to get here–just when I have made strong connections with all my professors, classmates, boss and coworkers, I am a few steps away from waving them all goodbye and start a new journey of my own.

As startling as it may be to move away from being a student and actually work out in the real world, I know that I am leaving UTEP with an improved mindset, and will to learn as much as I can from what life now offers.

Alejandra González may be reached at [email protected]