At the beginning of my second year, my first AE professor brought up a really good analogy for college. He said we’ve all gone to McDonalds to buy fries, we’ve all seen fries at the bottom of the bag, and we’ve all made sure to grab every last fry left. We do this because our fries are delicious, but also because we want to get everything we paid for. How does this relate back to school? Well, we’re paying for each and every minute we sit in class with a professor, for each opportunity that comes knocking at our door for leadership and travel, and for each and every social and professional development event. It’s easy to remember that last fry at the bottom of the bag, but it’s equally as important to remember each and every minute you have as a Penn State student.
I’m not going to be all cliche and say “this analogy totally changed my life,” but it did change the way I thought about my classes and new opportunities. I’m sure a lot of you are like me and have a plan set out in your head before you even get to college. You know what you want your major to be or where you want to study abroad or what kind of clubs you want to be involved in. If you take this route and just go with what you know, you’ve gotten all the fries in the box, but not at the bottom of the bag. Those fries come from stepping outside of your comfort zone and finding your passion. You get these fries from paying attention during every minute of the class period, from going on a trip to a new place with one of your organizations, and attending events that interest you whether it be a guest lecturer or a free concert.
This past year, I started to pick up those fries at the bottom of the bag. Since seventh grade, my plan had always been to go to school for architectural engineering and study abroad in Rome. This year, it came time to choose the AE Rome trip or the China trip. I was totally content with just taking a fry from the box and going to Rome as I had always planned. After being accepted into the Rome program, I took another look at the bag and decided to take one from the bottom instead. If I was going to pay for study abroad, I was going to take every last fry I could get out of it, and I knew China was the right decision to get the experience I wanted. Trust me, this was no quick decision, but the switch was made. Now I am three weeks into my study abroad experience, and I know the decision I made was the best choice. I have traveled to Beijing and Shanghai, and I am currently living in Hong Kong. I’m here with eleven amazing AE’s, and together we’ve gone to a oceanside amusement park, climbed a broken part of the Great Wall, and taken a river cruise around the bund in Shanghai. I’ve stood on the top floors of two of the top ten tallest buildings in the world, taken a bullet train, and became a master of charades with the crazy language barrier.
The fries at the bottom of the bag may not be the easiest fries to get, but they always taste the best. I challenge you to get every fry you can get whether it be in class, through WEP, in a club that interests you, or by taking a trip somewhere new. The first time I got to campus, I felt like I had a whole lifetime ahead of me at Penn State, then before I knew it three years were gone and now I’m a senior. Take every moment you have at Penn State and take advantage of everything being offered to you so when it’s time for you to graduate, you can confidently say you got every last fry at the bottom of the bag.
Lauren Boyle is a senior majoring in Architectural Engineering, and is the Professional Development Assistant for WEPO'15!
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