I attended an expensive and very theory-based university (and am still paying off student loans). Only one course from the four years I attended is now directly applicable to my current career. It was an 'intro to documentary film' production class. I ended up majoring in Political Science because I've always been interested in the way society and politics interact. However, at this school the emphasis was placed on power, money and war as the most important aspects of politics, which is a good perspective to have but I'm glad to observe the importance of other aspects now.

Although my higher education was not focused on the merely practical (in addition to my political science courses, I chose to take classes on ancient sanskrit texts, modern poetry, Hindi, astrophysics, painting...) I emerged from college with the confidence of being intellectually well-rounded and knowing that I know how to learn and do research in any field. That ability has helped me approach any job. In addition, my amazing classmates have inspired me to contribute to society as best I can because they're all doing wonderful things in the world!

One thing I have to admit to finding dissatisfying in college was the extreme emphasis on the mind and the rational. At the peak of academia, I looked around and realized that not a lot of people were happy. Once I entered the work world, I found myself unprepared for the mystery, the intuitive, the mystical in our world that cannot be explained by statistics or rational thought. I found myself having to relearn the magic I had found in nature as a child, commit to making my body healthy again (through exercise, yoga, dancing) and develop a meditation practice to keep anxiety at bay. I only wish that that type of knowledge could have been made available to me in college or that the institution would have encouraged a more balanced lifestyle.