A Collage of student thoughts:

The things that are important to me and that used to be important
to me are very different.  
The biggest influence in my college experience has been my friends. 
Weeks ago we were thrown into a new environment and told "Ok
just be yourself", well this was not easy.  I mean we all wanted to
be accepted and that meant acting the way we thought others
would want us to act.  When I am together with my friends they are
able to see the real me.

I guess that the college experience is all about learning and
growing.  And the major thing that I learned is that never expect
things to go the way you want them too because they very rarely
will turn out that way.  But in the long run things always turn out
for the best.  It is true that I am learning what I really am inside.  So
I guess the thing that I have learned most from my college
experience is that life is just one big educational field trip and that
along the way we must all live and learn.

Poem by Ann Darr

Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me

Be strange if it is necessary, be
quiet, kindly as you can without
feeling the heal marks on your head.
Be expert in some way that pleasures 
you, story-telling, baking, bed;
marvel at the marvelous
in leaves, stones, intercepted light;
put truth and people in their right-
full angle in the sun...find the shadow,
what it falls upon.
Trust everyone a little, no one much.
Care carefully.
Thicken your skin to hints and hurts, be
allergic to soul scrapers.

---------------

The poem summarizes many things which include not always
needing to act normal but to be different from everyone once in a
while.  It also discusses the need for kindness in your life, but not to
let people take adventage of that kindness, "Be/quiet, kindly as you
can without/ feeling the heel marks on your head."