INDEPENDENCE

The one thing that goes hand and hand with going to college is new found independence. Whenever somebody leaves their home and moves on to living in a new location, they have to deal with this new independence. Every college student experiences this independence wherever they go, whether it is one mile from their house, or 100,000 miles away from their house. College students have to find themselves as an individual and really become independent in almost everything that they do whether it might be with schoolwork or hanging out with friends on the weekends. They choose what their destinies are on a daily basis and form themselves through their independence.
In Dee’s situation, she did not find her independence, she searched for it. Dee was a girl brought up with Mama and Maggie and those two were always pretty dependent upon one another. Dee was not one to conform to the norm that Mama and Maggie were used to. She seemed to always seek out a different path from those two. Dee never quite knew all the right ways to go about gaining her independence, but she knew that she wanted it. That is kind of how it is when a person goes to college. Sometimes a student chooses to partake in activities that are not always the best route to gain their independence.
As a college student, coming into my new experience, sure enough, I found independence that I had never had before. The biggest thing that I found is the choices that opened up to me and new avenues I could take. I can skip classes whenever I want and I have nobody there to tell me otherwise. I think the reason that kids in college skip classes is not because they want to skip, but rather because of situations they put themselves in. For instance, on a Thursday night, if a student goes out and drinks alcohol until two o’clock in the morning and they have a class at eight, then the reason that they will not be able to go is because of a path they took before that class even started.
I think that weekends are the biggest time for a college student to spread their wings and go out on the weekends and meet new people. Even though the intentions are good, sometimes meeting new friends and being part of the social scene can be a bad thing. I sometimes have a lot of friends that influence me to go out on the weekends or to stay up late on school nights. I am kind of like Dee in a way. Dee wanted the quilts and changed her name for good intentions of being independent and showing family pride, however, she went about it in all of the wrong ways, for all of the right reasons. Much like the weekends for myself; sometimes I go out into the late hours of the night to meet new people and have a good time, but at times, that is not the best way to go about meeting new people.
I was always kind of dependent on my parents for things like food. Now that I am in college, I can choose what kind of foods I eat and I determine when I get to eat. Sometimes students do not deal well with this type of independence because of their busy schedules, late study hours, and at times, just a plain ol’ sweet tooth. I have no real problem with taking care of my body and eating certain foods and eating the correct amount.
For Dee independence was a want, for me, independence was not necessarily a want, but I had no real choice. Independence was forced upon me no matter if I was ready for it or not. That is the main difference between my independence and Dee’s independence.