Vans parked in endless lines. Boxes galore. Mumbled pardons, cheerful hellos and long-awaited embraces across the quad.

Yes, it’s that time of year where we scramble to drop our classes, make new friends, rekindle old friendships and altogether enjoy our college life.

Although we are grateful for our social life, cheap online book prices, and Friday nights out, we seem to overlook one critical factor: the simple reason why we are at Guilford at all.

Education.

We bemoan our ten page papers and even longer theses, procrastinating until the very last second to submit them to Moodle. We skim our readings instead of taking notes; we widen our margins instead of trudging through that last paragraph.

On a larger scale, classes are a means to graduation, and graduation, with that freshly-printed degree, is a means to a job.

We place more value on shortcuts, spending the time to research summaries of books and a few quotes instead of setting aside two hours to read.

More people would rather socialize than digest the intricacies of China in the fifth century, or head to Green Street in place of debating the finer points of our current political system and the importance of taking our place within it.

Plutarch once said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Though it may seem like any degree is the ticket to a job, education is more than earning money. It’s about engaging with the world on a local to global basis. With professors that provoke us to argue a point, we learn to debate policies.

By presenting a proposal to Community Senate, we gain negotiation skills. With all the information at our fingertips, in Hege Library, from our professors, and even from our peers, we realize that education is more than just sitting in a classroom; it’s leaving the classroom and making a difference in the real world.