It’s reading period at Tufts—the short few days in between the last day of class and the first day of finals. The period of the year where you cram in all the information you should have been learning throughout the semester.

For me, this is the only time of year where I act even remotely like a typical student: spending hours and hours in the library, using phrases like “study break,” cracking open text books, reading over notes, blocking social media from my computer, and so on.

It is during this period of intense focus on school that I realize something profoundly important: as much as I like to say that I hate school, want to drop out to “join the real world,” start working on things I’m innately passionate about, stop following instructions and start carving my own path, school has given me a lot of things to be thankful for.

Amidst all of this studying and academic essay-writing, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect back on this past semester. On paper, it is going to be the worst semester of my academic career. However, in terms of its impact on my life, this semester has been the most profound.

This has been the semester where I have learned the most, grown the most, partied the most, slept the least, gone to class the least, struggled the most with my anxiety disorder, joined a fraternity, overcame a bunch of fears, became a more confident person, started a company with a few classmates, made new friends, lost touch with old friends, and, most importantly, became more self-aware and happy with who I am.

I think a lot of the time, when I’m questioning why I’m in school, what I’m getting out of my education, and contemplating dropping out, I simply have the wrong mindset.

School isn’t about being a great student, it’s about learning how to be a great person.

I’m not a great student, I never have been and never will be. It simply isn’t who I am. My dissatisfaction with school stems from my inability to be a good student in an institution where I (falsly) assumed the ultimate goal was to be a great student and follow all of the rules.

Contrast my inability to be a great student in an institution that rewards academic success with my ability to shine as an insightful person, thinker and entrepreneur in an industry that appreciates and rewards my innate talents; there is no doubt as to why I have felt like school isn’t the right place for me.

But I was wrong. Hating school because I don’t like the system is taking the easy way out. The right thing to do is to find reasons to love school: to focus on having the best four years of my life.

Ultimately, those who get the most out of school are those who make school work for them.

If I can figure out methods to measure my success in terms of personal growth instead of grades, than suddenly, I can look at my time spent in school in an entirely new way. Lately, I have been able to do this, and I am now confident that, even in my darkest hour when I wish I were out in The Valley working on my company full time, being in college is enormously valuable to my life and to my future.

Right now, in this moment, I am a student at Tufts Univeristy, finishing up my third semester of college. That’s not the only aspect of my identity, but it is as much a part of me as anything else. I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t give it my all.

I’m lucky to be where I am today. I have spent years building a personal brand, amassing a network of mentors and valuable connections, telling my story, and ultimately finding my place to stand out in the crowded, ultra-competitive entrepreneurial landscape. I still have a lot of room to improve.

It’s not easy to be an average student in school when you can be an exceptional person “in the real world,” but it is incredibly important.

I have a lot of friends who are in a similar position to me. Some of them are in school, some of them have dropped out (or have not gone to school at all). Some of them have been successful, and some of them haven’t. For people like us, we are often given opportunities to do things that many people can only dream of. We are given the chance to stand out, to be unique and to forge our own paths. School sounds like a miserable waste of time in comparison.

What I’ve realized, though, both through my own situation and also through observing my friends is that, in life, it is very tempting to skip steps. Life is short, after all. We are reminded of this so frequently that it has become engrained in us. Thus, it becomes hard to justify to ourselves why we should spend time doing something that seems so useless.

Most people view school as a means to an end; as the prerequistite to a career. This is the problem, especially for people who have already been able to achieve the “ends” that school is supposedly designed to enable.

It is important, every once in awhile, to be average… to be just another student trying to get by. It is humbling and also informative to learn that, in many ways, even exceptional people are average in many contexts. Putting yourself in these contexts give you insight into your weaknesses and gives you opportunities to grow.

School isn’t a four year program designed to prepare us for the workforce; instead, it’s the start of a lifelong journey of continuous growth.

For some people, school gives them the skills they need in order to get a job; a job they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. These are the people who work hard, follow the rules of the game, get good grades, receive academic awards, and impress their professors. There’s nothing wrong with being one of these people. My goal here is to challenge the assumption that not being one of these people means you should drop out of school.

For people like myself, school is a place to grow and learn in an environment where it is safe, surround by people doing the same thing. Going to every class, writing papers on time, and reading everything that is assigned is of very little relatively importance. What’s important is that school creates situations to make mistakes, to fail, to learn the hard way, to step outside of your comfort zone, and to do things you hate—or thought you hated.

What’s also important is that school create an environment for self-reflection. Once you graduate, life starts moving so fast, you will have little time to reflect on who you were, who you are, and who you are becoming.

I am thankful for every opportunity I have gotten throughout my entire academic career to become the person I hope to be when I graduate.

Sure, there are moments when I hate school. If there were words stronger than hate, I’d probably use them. In the end, however, when nothing else matters aside from the stories that have shaped me into who I am, I will not regret for one moment the four years I spent in school. The four years I spent realizing how little I know that will ultimately—hopefully!—launch me into the world as a curious, ambitious, appreciative, hard working, respectful member of society.

School is, if nothing else, a time to mature without having to every actually grow up; because, after all, who wants to grow up? Not me.

A more meaningful transcript

While my transcript may depict me as a failure, the following anecdotes and memories from this semster should serve as my real transcript—a collection of the things I have learned and the ways I have grown. These are the things I will tell my grandkids, the stories that I will tell that will define my identity. After all, that’s what a transcript is supposed to achieve.

Joining a fraternity

This semster I joined ATO of Massachusetts. It’s technically a “frarority” as we have both male and female members. I could not be happier to be a part of an amazing group of people. A few years back, I never would have expected myself to join a fraternity, but now it is one of my favorite things about school.

This goes to show how little certainty we have over our futures.

ATO has made me more confident and more aware of my weaknesses. It has given me the opportunity to become close to people I likely never would have otherwise. In a world filled with uncertainty and in a life filled with chaos and change, being a part of a group is a stabling factor. It’s an aspect of your identity that you can rely on; that you don’t have to fight to defend.

ATO, like college overall, is a place where it’s okay to let loose, be a little crazy, and have fun. Life doesn’t have to be so serious.

Getting drunk with a bunch of smart people is an amazing way to realize just how insignificant so much of life truly is. School can be stressful, as can life. It’s nice having a support group to be there for you. In college, you are surrounded by friends almost 24/7. The same cannot be said about the workforce.

You are a sum of the people who you surround yourself with.

Starting a company

Having realized that school is all about the people, not the grades or what happens inside the classroom, I was lucky enough to find three amazing co-founders to start a company called Marko Labs building products that we believe will make people’s lives more fun.

In college, time is limited and abundant at the same time.

As cliché as it is, college really is the best time to start a company. I’m lucky to have found two of the smartest engineers at Tufts as well as an incredibly artistcally talented best friend to join and share my vision of creating simple yet powerful products that give life more meaning.

We’re building an iPhone application that helps people leave their mark.

Every physical place has its own story—created, remembered, and told by those who have been there before, and those who will stumble across the place in the near or distant future. Marko let’s you take part in an evolving history of a place by dropping photos that can only be viewed while in the location they were left.

Learning from my (academic) mistakes

I signed up for five classes this semester but quickly ended up dropping Western Political Thought, right before our first paper was due. I guess in my mind, it was easier to drop the class than to do the work, leaving me with only four classes.

My favorite two classes are Data Structures and Human Machine System Design however, even those classes I have skipped several times, turned in late work, and often neglected to put in my full effort.

I also take Behavioral Statistics which is an incredibly important foundational course, but that I have not once paid full attention to in lecture. Finally, I take Ethics but have practically skipped more classes than I have been to and have not gone to a single one of my apparently mandatory recitations.

I used to tell myself that I just didn’t care, but I was lying to myself. Truthfully, I am disappointed and have let myself down. There are few things worse than disappointing yourself—of realizing you could have done better.

If you are going to do something, either do it well, or don’t do it at all. I am thankful that I was able to learn this earlier rather than later. In the big picture, my academic successes and failures will not matter. What matters is that I learn from my mistakes.

The only real failure is failure to learn from your mistakes.