By Kim Manahan (Whetstone Staff Writer)

Kim Manahan

Going onto my fifth year, I sometimes ask myself why I am even in college.

After four years of books, people and worrying that my mom will find out I had to withdraw from another class because of attendance, things get old, and real life becomes even more distant.

What is the point of college anyway?

Is it to cram knowledge into your brain and hope that it stays there for when you get your first “real” job, or is it to learn to stand on your own two feet? Both?

Whatever it is, it still costs a lot of money, and money can’t buy happiness.

For the United States, the average life expectancy is about 78 years.

Many of us spend 20 years or more in front of books, writing essays and sitting through lectures.

And if you want to make even more money, it’s more than that.

Sometimes I wonder why a quarter of my life is really just preparing me for the other 75 percent of it. It’s depressing.

Now, step back and look at how long humans have been around. We’re just a mere speck in the world that will burn out faster than a candle, in the big picture. Most of us won’t be remembered a century or two from now.

So why do we continue to spend money to make money? Why do we worry so much whether or not we know something, or if we are educated?

It’s a never-ending vicious cycle.

Except for this: I like to learn.

I’m not staying a fifth year to get a double major because I want a high paying job or to become famous, it’s because certain things interest me. My second major is going to be political science.

I don’t want to be a politician. But I want to understand it. I want to be a journalist.

I hear that journalism is a dying profession that will not make me rich – but, really, I don’t care.

For anyone who is going to school just to make money, ask yourself if this is really how you want to spend the rest of your life.

Do you want to be in a profession that will make you miserable? Do you want to work 9-5 for a boss who hasn’t been laid in a decade?

What’s the point of wealth and power if you can’t enjoy it?