The Doors of School

 by Sam Quinn

Life is a series of doors.  One must have the courage, determination, and maturity to open them and endure what the other side has to offer.  My summer door is closing and the doorknob to my senior year of college is beginning to turn and open. What is on the other side of that door? Multiple hallways leading to new paths and beginnings, alongside of an array of emotions and obstacles.

My mind has yet to grasp the idea of entering my last year. The “real world” is so close, yet that upcoming road is something that has not yet been paved. Looking back on my entire academic experience, there have been ups and down, good and bad and am lucky to have been through it all. As I sit here reflecting and writing, I cannot even think as to where time has gone. The early school doors opened and closed in a blink of an eye, and, honestly, I do not remember much except that I was a brilliant finger-painter and struggled with the simple ways of math. (Dancers only need to count eight anyways, right?) The high school door swung open, tossing me into a sea of labels and obstructions that ultimately lead me to find my true self.

Going back to school is not just another time of learning useless information that you memorize to pass tests. It’s not another year to look back to see what you could have done differently and to be more prepared for the future. It is a time to live in the present, absorb all that is accessible to you, and to grow  as a student and person. After high school, it took a minute to figure out what I truly learned over four years. I thought about it and realized that I had done it all wrong. I came to realize that school is just one big giant math equation. There are a bunch of positive and negative elements jumbled all together. On the other side of the equal sign is the cumulative answer to what one should learn through all your years of school. And that single lettered answer should come out to be an F standing for fail. Without failure, we have not learned anything. It is okay to fall down multiple times, as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving. School is all about learning from your mistakes. In my eyes, that is the one lesson that teachers cannot teach you.  

And the door to my senior year is beginning to open. I am anxious to see what obstacles I can encounter. I am eager for the future. Most of all, I am ready to conquer rejection. Not only in the dance world, but also in life. Through failure comes success, and with success comes happiness. So look to the future, open your doors, close them and don’t look back. If your door does not have a smooth paved road lying ahead of you, keep trudging along. As the saying goes, one door closes and another one opens.