Friends With (Educational) Benefits

Friends in college? Ultimately, they're not worth your time.

Friends with (Educational) Benefits

Friends? Ah, who needs them? So much emphasis is put on building a social life, especially in college, when none of it is really needed at all. College is supposed to be a place to learn and prepare yourself for life. Friends are not a necessity at all. Why? Because your entire education is based on you, you learn on your own.

For example, take study groups and studying with a friend. You invariably get distracted, or someone is late, or you argue about a minor point instead of moving on to major points, and ultimately nothing ends up getting done. Many would argue that study groups are a helpful tool; that by talking with others you can gain new perspectives on the learning, hearing the material in the words of a peer, or that friends can help you with material that they may understand better than you.

While this may be true, and studying with a friend gives you an accountability partner who can drag you back to your work if you get distracted and who can also give you a new perspective on your organization and planning, the best studying is done alone. You may not understand everything as well as you could, but nothing can beat the feeling of knowing that you earned your A, or B, or C, or D, or F through your own work, using only the book, your notes, and your own brain. This will eliminate personal conflict that can be the death of a study group and the productivity that supposedly results from such an environment. They say that two heads are better than one, but is it really worth the two heads bashing against each other?

Via mycollegeguide.org

Let's be real - no study group is ever this happy.

It is said that you make the best friends of your life during college. But how can you make friends when you are supposed to be focusing on your future, your career, your education? When you put forth all your effort into your studies and your school, who has the time for friends? Friends and education are mutually exclusive. You simply cannot direct friendships towards enhancing education. If you are enhancing your education, you are doing so through books and your professor. Like a young child, these elements mold the student's mind and help it to grow. However, like a young child, the mind can get very distracted, like with social activities and friends. The two simply cannot mix, for reasons aforementioned.

Via youngfreemichigan.com

But what of the interpersonal skills needed in the workplace, some may cry out. In the end, a majority of college graduates will end up working in little office cubicles, rarely mingling with fellow employees save for a few moments here and there at the water cooler or coffee machine that will probably be avoided anyway due to the readily handy distractions on a phone. You can learn independently how to send out a memo with information. The important thing is that you know the information to get you the job. After all, your skills should attest to who you are as a person, not who you know or how well you can communicate what you know. Just knowing what to do should be enough.

Via poetry.rapgenius.com

Face it, this is going to be you, kids.

As you can clearly see, building a social life and making friends in college is a complete waste of time. Why spend the time making friends who could help you with your homework and make studying fun when you can sit alone in the library or on your bunk bed and spend hours reading your textbook and notes over and over again? Your education should come first and friends only get in the way of your education, no matter how driven they are themselves with a motivational energy that radiates forth from them. In theatre, they say that who you know lands you the part just as much as your talent. But this is all poppycock, just like studying theatre, which changes all of the time! But that's for another rant…

Via theguardian.com

It can be a lonely world - but it's all yours!

*** This is satire, if you haven't noticed, written by a proud theatre major.