The person you were in high school doesn’t define the person you will be for the rest of your life. In high school it all seemed to be about fitting in and being accepted by any group. Many times in school we let the “good times” get the best of us. We tended to believe we are invincible, when we were truly not. Some of us bullied others or were the ones being bullied. Sometimes we tended to let school rivalries get the best of us and we let ourselves get dragged down to the worst of it.
This all seemed to have changed for most of us once we got to college. We go to class and realize there is no one else in the class from our high school. If there is, it is probably someone we may have only uttered a few words to in the last four years. We participate in a school sport where as a team we have to come together and be united as one. We now have to be a team with players we once played against for conference wins, conference titles, sectional titles and much more.

This is all possible for one and only one reason. Our maturity level from the day of high school graduation to the first day of college quickly seemed to have increased for most of us. Once we stepped into IVCC we realized how long the semester would be if we didn’t quickly make new friends — including new friends from schools we were once big rivals with. These friendships are friendships that may become strong enough ones to be carried out for the rest of our lives.
However because of this one reason, our maturity level, we don’t realize what life lesson we are learning. After choosing to go to IVCC we are mixed together with many surrounding schools of the area we once despised. Now attending classes with all of these students and students from our own schools we barely know, being able to befriend them is teaching us how to be able to make friends with people in our future.

By going to IVCC we are forced to learn this now instead of having to learn the hard way five years down the road once we have a job in our selected careers. I have made a handful of friends that I am astonished we were once so downgrading to each other only because the schools we came from were one of each other’s school’s biggest rivals.

Of all the things I will learn, this lesson I feel will help many of us throughout our lives. In all reality many people despise IVCC and talk so poorly about the school. What they don’t realize is being able to make friends with these people we once despised is something they will not learn fairly easily at a four-year university. In all honesty, attending IVCC just prepared me in one way that is not academically for my future that I truly am thankful for. Thank you, IVCC.