Graduation

This semester is to be my last,
Assuming I don't crash and burn,
And I wanted to take this opportunity,
To share a bit of what I've learned.
I've been in school for five bloody years,
Entered as a freshman, 17 years of age,
I was young and stupid back then,
And as you can see, not much has changed.
I wreckon we were all told college is an opportunity,
And that we should all take it serious,
But its not just about opportunity,
It is about all of our experience.
They push us really hard here,
To do anything to pass,
But lets not forget that most of our education,
Has taken place outside of class.
One day, many, many years from now,
When, God forbid, I've got kids,
Will I say that college is only about classes,
Or will I tell them how it really is?
For them to be the ideal student would be nice,
Working hard to keep up with everything assigned,
But all to often, its not that way,
And they will may end up with their asses on the line.
There will be tests that never are studied for,
That by some miricle they pass with an A,
And there will be classes they work and work at,
That will regardless get a much lower grade.
There will be bad times where they feel blessed,
And good times that they feel cursed,
Their least favorite people may end up the best,
And their best of friends may become the worst.
You know what I think, is that years from now,
When we all become fathers and mothers,
When our kids ask us about college,
We'll probably tell them about the times with each other.
We might tell them about the night,
That we were working on a paper due the next day,
And our buddy calls to say he found a keg party,
And instead of declining, we said, yay.
We would always rationalize it in our minds,
Saying we'll finish the work before next day's class,
And at four in the morning, we'd be writing that paper,
While still drunk off our ass.
Then turn it in two pages short,
With an incomplete bibliography,
And swear we'd never do that again,
Only to do it all over the next week.
We might tell them about those giant assignments we did,
Of which our professors couldn't ask for more,
And even though it was a semester project,
We wrote it all the night before.
We might warn them that the stress can get intense,
To such a degree that it seems unreal,
And that we only balanced it out by a couple of beers,
Or an occaisional bowlpack in Chapman field.
Yes, we might tell them about our college life,
How it can quickly go from heaven to hell,
Or we might do what many of our parents did,
And just let them experience it for themselves.
But back to the here and now of today,
That future conversation's not what this is about,
This is a tribute to the all the past years at Ferrum,
And its my way of enjoying this last Coffeehouse.
These years have been nothing short of awesome,
I will never deny that's true,
But the absolute best part of Ferrum College for me,
Was being able to attend it with all of you.
To those I leave behind I say,
Find that balance between work and fun,
Don't ever take sleep for granted,
And never, ever play with guns.
And to those who depart with me,
Whether we merely leave or graduate,
Lets go out there and give 'em hell,
And proudly be the class of '08.