School & future

Ambition is key - I always want something to strive for. While studying for exams, I realize that I'm going to be receiving my undergrad degree in about a year and a half. What is symbolic of a university degree? Is it a piece of paper to show that I crammed information into my head for four years and wrote exams to test my knowledge on the subject? Hopefully that's not what I think about when I finally see my official-looking degree face-to-face, embellished with the elegant University of Western Ontario logo and my name written in bolded capital letters somewhere near the centre of the paper. Hopefully I do think about the intrinsic value that important piece of paper carries: my ability to learn, my ability to understand my own needs in how I learn, becoming more independent by living away from home, the amazing people I shared memories with, the typical obstacles and life lessons a university student faces and most importantly, the accomplishment I have made in life by receiving that degree. But don't get me wrong - the knowledge I have gained on topics such as economics, accounting and actuarial science is readily applicable to the real world. In a recession, I understand the underlying causes and the way the economy works; I know the government's role in business and in fiscal policy; I've studied the success factors of a business under the highly-acclaimed case method (focusing on operations, organizational behaviour, marketing, budgeting, etc); I've learned different political and economic views such as neo-Keynesian, neo-liberal, monetarism; and I've scratched the surface of the debt and equity markets. I can use this in everyday life - whether I'm reading the newspaper or shopping at a store - which makes my degree that much more valuable to me.

That leaves me to wonder... is that the only time I will get to experience that feeling? Or will I be receiving more degrees, that are perhaps symbolic of other things? All I know is that I am feeling ambitious and that the future is unpredictable. I'm going to go somewhere in life.