For over a decade, my peers and I navigated the right-angle corridors of Academia, trying to prepare for life beyond them. About halfway through, I recognized that schools often function more like a maze than a clear path to adulthood. The maps we draw in our younger years are frequently incomplete, and the guidance we receive often falters. Yet, within that structure lies hidden value. 

At their best, schools offer a chance to unearth passions and forge connections as we stumble toward maturity. But more importantly, they inadvertently impart broader life lessons. Through my own experience, I identified four key truths which grinding through school has to offer.

Truth #1: It takes a long time to fully grow and mature intellectually. 

Intellectual maturity is not an overnight achievement. Cognitive and emotional development follow their own timelines. Yet schools operate on rigid academic calendars, expecting uniform progress where none truly exists. Many years of compulsory education simply recycle foundational material with slightly larger vocabulary and longer essays. Over time, school doesn’t feel like a pursuit of wisdom at all, but more like a series of chores. You’re expected to produce longer papers, regurgitate more data, and optimize your output and participation in exchange for higher grades. As this pattern repeats, the focus gradually shifts from understanding to performance. 

Most crucially, real learning does not pause at graduation. With consistent practice and perseverance, you inevitably improve, regardless of the system’s pacing. School merely provides a baseline, in that it’s a starting point. And yet many of my peers saw high school graduation as a finish line, unless you were going off to college, which was seen as an entirely different endeavor. (It’s not, believe it or not, just a far more expensive mutation of what you’ve already experienced in high school.) 

True intellectual development is a lifelong endeavor. Strangely enough, as much as you hear this said, most people still treat education as a destination rather than a mindful practice. But the pressure to meet artificial deadlines that’s expected in the corporate world means training the youth to believe it’s a necessary evil to get ahead in the world. (Again, that’s all a lie.) 

Truth #2: There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all education system.

By high school, it became clear to me that standardized education is fundamentally flawed. Every student possesses distinct talents, learning styles, and aspirations. Yet most public systems are engineered around uniformity, prioritizing standardized testing and rigid curricula over individual potential. What institutions call “academic excellence” often masks their narrow obsession with test scores and compliance. The only “excellence” this system creates is one based entirely on conformity to some arbitrary standards over creativity, ingenuity, and diversity.

I observed firsthand as peers tried to force themselves to work inside rigid academic molds. Their natural interests were sidelined in favor of predictable coursework. A more functional system would adapt to diverse strengths, still teaching the high points of traditional subjects with emerging disciplines, with a focus on developing critical thinking skills. Education should amplify human potential, not filter it out. In those rare times schools stop treating students as data points and start nurturing individual trajectories, students will naturally engage with the material. There needs to be an alignment between instruction and aspiration, not seeking some uniformity that has no basis in reality.

In the immortal words of Robert Frost, “we must take the road less traveled by…” Only by following this wisdom have I discovered some of the human ingenuity that lies dormant within those I meet. Our schools should bring us together in order to prepare us to go forth to meet our own destinies. None of us should be filed away into the have-been, will-be, and never-will. The high attrition rate of human potential isn’t just disheartening and unfortunate, it’s a crime against humanity.

Truth #3: School pushes excessive participation in extra-curricular activities.

During junior-high and high school, I watched my peers treat clubs, sports, and volunteer work as ingredients for their budding resumes. While these pursuits can be enriching, of course, the relentless pursuit of accolades often leads to burnout rather than fulfillment. I decided to stay on the fringes of the extracurricular activity world, only participating in clubs every so often just to see what they were about. What I saw was the absurdity of my peers’ overindulgence in juggling afterschool commitments to appear “well-rounded.” I quickly realized that quantity never equals quality. Real life rewards depth of field and authenticity in your passions, not simply holding a clipboard with a list of activities, hurriedly checking as many boxes as possible.

Stepping back allowed me to see the high cost of this “go-go-go” mentality. Many of my classmates entered college exhausted, with their original passions buried under layers of obligation. They left the best parts of themselves behind in high school, mistaking further activity at the university level for growth. But success isn’t measured by how many boxes you check. You grow by how deliberately you invest your time. Focusing on a few meaningful pursuits yields far more depth than spreading yourself thin across a dozen superficial ones. Guard your attention and your time, because these are your most valuable resources, especially in the perils of the predatory “attention economy.”

Back in the early 2000’s when I was in the latter grades, my life was centered on exploring the wonders of the still exciting wild west of the internet. Social media hadn’t quite infected things yet, outside of MySpace which was still fairly free-form and exciting. Why indulge in superfluous expectations when I could follow my curiosity at my own pace in the comforts of my childhood home? In that way, I was fortunate to not let extracurricular burnout derail my future as it did for so many of my classmates.

Truth #4: School doesn’t teach you what you need to survive.

The most practical life lesson I got from school was also the hardest to accept. Schools rarely teach what you actually need to navigate adult life. The curriculum is designed for academic exposure, not real-world preparedness. Financial literacy, emotional regulation, practical problem-solving, and career navigation are largely left to chance. None of these things should be treated off-hand. This unfortunate gap, however intentional it may be in the grand scheme of the educational institution, forces us to take ownership of our education once we leave the classroom. And sadly, most of us don’t, only pursuing it again when it offers the promise (often empty) of a higher salary and more fulfilling career.

Rather than resent this fact, I just made the best of the time I was forced to be there. School can provide structure, exposure, and a shared cultural baseline, which are all positive things. But the responsibility to build a functional life lies with you. The uncertainties you encounter outside the syllabus aren’t obstacles, but a preview of the actual curriculum of real life. Learning to trust your judgment, adapt to ambiguity, and continuously teach yourself are skills no standardized test can measure. This is the great failure of the modern education industry; in fact, it shouldn’t be treated as an industry at all, but a necessary part of our shared human development.

Schooling is a foundation, not a place to find the blueprints for future success. Our friendships, failures, and unexpected detours we experience there are simply part of a much greater process. Ultimately, we must chart our own paths, guided by curiosity and self-awareness. We must be willing to keep learning long after our formal education ends. 

And for me, that probably should’ve ended with college, but my terrible “college experience” is for an entirely different essay.

~ Amelia Desertsong, September 2023

(A version of this previously appeared in Chronicles of Absurdia, Volume 1.)