fourth year lauren linkowski

The best things I’ve learned in college have to be the random pieces of knowledge that people pass along. Discovered from grandparents or overheard traveling, it’s the type of knowledge that sticks around and somehow has the perfect place in a conversation possibly years later. Just recently, a visitor pointed out the rosemary bush, now so overgrown, it blocks the walkway to my front door. She first asked if I had planted it, and after seeing my surprised face because I hadn’t noticed it before, she told me that rosemary grows best where women thrive.

Something about her comment struck me that day. The comment itself was heartwarming to hear considering I live in a house of four college-aged girls all interviewing for jobs and trying to figure out where we’ll be impacting the world this time next year. Moreover, I think her willingness to share the fact is more important.

These little facts and tidbits of knowledge only are passed along when people have the confidence to share them. Usually, they’re unimportant and don’t make large impressions about someone’s intelligence, but to me, they offer a more complete story about the person. They reveal worldliness- in the strangest sense. They point out the people who listen, and genuinely absorb information. I purpose to surround myself with the people who pass along the positive stories, in a world where the exact opposite is commonly shared and easily found.

I may be reading into it, but her sharing that fact has made me more confident in the direction I’m heading after graduation. Not only because I practically run into the rosemary bush every time I’m running late for class, but also because I know I’ll collect little facts like this wherever I end up.

Even though college is a time where structured learning is the norm, this year I have been reminded that some of the most impactful learning can happen, and has happened, outside the classroom.

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