Value your time in college, but get over Tech

Tuesday I was accepted to a summer internship program. This requisite college job conjures up images of walking the hallowed corridors of Capitol Hill and strolling with high-powered society on the Mall.

That ' s how things were for me last summer. This summer, though, in between leaving Tech and heading to graduate school, things will be a little different - I ' ll be on a farm.

Have I ever been on a farm? Not exactly, as long as petting zoos don ' t count. Sunscreen and gloves will be a drastic change from suit, tie and briefcase.

People who know me can ' t even fathom me attending such a program. It ' s sure to be something along the lines of A Simple Life, except far worse for those watching since I ' m nowhere near as hot.

This is not just any farm. It ' s thousands of acres of living labs designed for sustainable agriculture systems. I wasn ' t adventurous enough to pick the project involving cow fecal sampling; slow-moving plants are probably a better choice for me.

The farm is near Goldsboro, N.C., also new to me. We were mapping it out online and had an immature laugh when we discovered it ' s right next to an Air Force base named Seymour Johnson. We never grow up here at the newspaper.

It ' s less than an hour from the Outer Banks. Ocean and sun will be my roommates. Communing with nature, getting away from it all, manifest destiny and all that American junk; I felt like I should try it for once.

There are 15 other interns in the program, and get this, 12 of them are girls (go figure), and there are six hours of credit attached (though useless post-commencement).

Why would I want to do such a thing? I ' m still not quite sure, but when your friends laugh at the suggestion, something gnaws at you saying it ' s needed.

The spark though, came from my one and only LCC class. We were reading Walden; it just gets to you after a while, especially actually reading it this time around. I almost switched out of the course. Instead, I stuck with it and loved it, planning my summer differently because of it.

Why worry about the time, why worry about the money? (I won ' t be getting a stipend.) Live to live, see the " natural " side of life for a while, sans skyscrapers and cars. I ' ll have to ride my bike on site; I ' m not quite sure if I still have one. The point, take an LCC class. There ' s at least one more point to this swan song, sorry to put you through it.

After I ' m finished, I ' ll be heading to Duke for a Masters degree. It ' s safe for you to surmise that they don ' t have one in agriculture. So why the diversion, why the sudden cut? We all need to step outside our element, especially the routine of Tech. Three years has been enough.

I won ' t miss Tech when I ' m gone. I will miss college as an undergraduate. They are not the same. It ' s disheartening to hear people say how much Tech has changed their lives or how they plan to get season tickets and play benefactor the first chance they get.

Take Thoreau ' s advice and get back to self-reliance. Your education and experience here were not shaped by Buzz.

Take some credit. The gold GT on your shirt had little to do with it. People at other schools love their school just as much and will miss it just as much as you. Uh oh. Who is right?

Most of us could have easily gone to myriad similar-caliber colleges and we wouldn ' t be worse off for it. Don ' t frame your life around Tech; wearing it like a tag for the rest of your life is depressing.

Please don ' t end up like those embarrassing drunken redneck alumni at football games, reminiscing about the past while withering away in the present. Move on, use your degree for good in the world and make new experiences. Be proud for the effort you put in, but don ' t dwell on it.

To everyone worried about missing Tech: get over it, starting at commencement. Start at the moment where you eagerly wait to cross the stage, excited that you will get to touch some administrator adept at writing propagandistic columns in the Technique, and superficially pretend you ' re smarter instantly because of it.

Come on, we all know that the precise instantiation of brilliance actually comes in the mail two months later.