What is college worth?

I want college to help me in "composing a self, of permanent character change" with that being my "goal of a university education." I've known for a while that there are some aspects of me that I don't necessarily like entirely, and that I have a lot that I can change for the future. It's embarrassing to admit, but I had a sort of mental block about acting those changes out before coming to college; I could identify what I wanted to change, but the atmosphere I was living in was almost smothering in that sense. Enacting a change upon myself that others would notice and see was a somewhat-frightening prospect, I'm ashamed to admit. The me that I presented to the world seemed like I was "mainly the creature of foreign influences and circumstances, and made up of accidents," and that's not who I am or want to be.

Masked.

It's strange, but just after coming to UT and taking in the kind of places where tens of thousands of people live around each other and coexist I actually felt a shift in myself. The sheer freedom that was present on campus and the different sorts of people that I saw were both so refreshing that I couldn't appreciate it more. UT offers so many opportunities to experience new things, both in and out of the classroom, and in the time I've been here I've met so many interesting, interested people. I've had conversations about everything from literature and music, video games to current affairs, with people from Plan II but also with Turing students from my other major and even with students that I've met at club meetings. These are the sorts of memories that I want to take away from my time at UT, and I hope I make many more of them.

A photo I took walking away from Gone To Texas.