Three summers ago I flew to Kenai, Alaska to work for an offshore commercial salmon fishing operation. Part of our crew was old sea dogs, men who had come back to the salmon time and time again, hoping to scratch out enough money to fill their whiskey bottles or get lucky with a lady up in Anchorage. The others were much like myself: unable to grow a beard, a year or two into college and trying, ultimately, to find out what do with their lives. I left Alaska after the three-month season, in some ways irritated, with the question that brought me there still unanswered. In many ways I leave Wooster with that same question. But, after four years, that is exactly what I want.
I have learned to treat my college experience as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Four years ago, I was hoping to leave Ohio with a distinct knowledge of what I wanted to do with my life. In no way has that happened. What separates Wooster from so many other schools is the fact that its ultimate purpose is not to show you the paths to take, but rather help you uncover the tools to find those paths yourself.
In 1992, a young man by the name of Christopher McCandless left his home, family and almost anything tangible he had to seek contentment in the remote Alaskan wilderness. Only four months after McCandless went into the wild, his body, fallen from starvation and the bitter Alaskan cold.
McCandless had graduated from Emory University with a polished resume and abundant job opportunities. But his time in college also brought on a profound bitterness for society. The resentment became so deep that McCandless believed the only path to unchain him of the obligations and societal norms was buried somewhere under the Alaskan snow.
McCandless’ guide was the words of Thoreau, an American transcendentalist who famously espoused these same beliefs in individual freedom that many of us, including myself, share. But that is where Chris and my paths diverge. To McCandless, college was an end in itself. That view gave credence to his belief that his years at Emory, in the end, constrained his future.
In many ways I shared a similar philosophy to McCandless when I came here as a first-year. I viewed Wooster as providing me the end to my means, not the means to an end.
Wooster has changed that and, after four years, I’m thankful that I leave with more questions than answers.