I didn’t understand what I was mastering in college.
It wasn’t any hard skill. I didn’t graduate having mastered singing, composing, arranging, sight reading, piano, or any other musical skill. Truly. In all of those areas, I’ve grown more since college than I grew in college.
And that points to what I did master in college.
Growth.
The point of higher education isn’t to fill you up with knowledge or skills until you’re finished. The point of higher education is to show you the path ahead, get you moving down the path, and make sure that momentum sets in. From there, you can’t help but continue to grow.
It seems like a contradiction. The things I do best I didn’t master in college. But without college, I would not be able to do them.
I don’t know if there’s a way to really know this without living the process; but I offer the insight freely so it might give hope to someone else.