When we were alone in the hospital for the first time-just me, Chris, and Jack-there was almost a sense of, "Oh my gosh, what do we even do?!" When it came time to change a diaper or swaddle him or anything like that. When Chris was changing his first diaper, he asked, "Am I doing this right?" To which I replied, "I have no idea." We joked that instead of obscure math classes, they should offer parenting classes in college so you can be prepared for the rest of your life. It made me think of all the things I didn't learn how to do in college, but probably should have...things like:
Change a tire. I don't really foresee a scenario where I want to be alone on the side of the highway changing my own tire, but hey, it's probably still a good idea to know how. Instead, I learned about the different types of drugs poets took in the 1800's to inspire their work. Interesting, sure, but altogether rather useless now.
Build good credit. I had zero credit cards and zero debt to my name when I graduated college. I thought this was a great thing and that it showed that I only spent money if I had it. I had no idea that having no credit cards or anything I was on a payment plan for meant that I had no credit. When I went to sign the lease for our first apartment, the leasing office was like, "Um...do you know you don't have any credit? Like, at all?" I feel like freshman year should come with the recommendation to put things on a credit card (and pay it off on time!), but instead, I learned different conspiracy theories about how Shakespeare never existed.
Jump a car back to life. I really wish that you could have overheard the conversation when I called my dad two years after I had graduated college and asked him what colors went where on a car battery. It was mostly just silence on his part as he was flabbergasted that I had somehow made it through life until then without ever having to use a pair of jumper cables. He asked me what my plan was if my car ever died, and I said I would call Triple A. To which he said, "Do you have Triple A?" No, no I did not. But hey! I can tell you when, where, and how Jack Kerouac died.
Understand health insurance/medical bills. I am so thankful that I have good insurance, but here's what I've learned: They make it as complicated as possible so that you will just pay the bill instead of comparing it to your actual coverage and questioning it. I got a bill for $800 after my initial blood work when from when I found out I was pregnant. Thank God for Chris, because my reaction was "OH MY GOSH THIS IS REDICULOUS BUT I GUESS I OWE $800 UGH." And his reaction was, "Yeah, that doesn't sound right." And within two hours I got an apology call saying I actually owed zero dollars. But if it weren't for Chris, I would have just paid the $800! Because college did not teach me about these things-instead, it taught me all about Literary Theory and the schools of criticism..cool to learn, but ask me how many times I've used that knowledge post-college? Zero.
CPR. Up until a few years ago, if you were choking or needed CPR in front of me, you probably just would have died. My bad. But I did go to a self-defense class, where I learned that I needed to buy pepper spray and a rape whistle. So there's that.
In all reality, I loved my classes. I love that I know tons of obscure facts about authors and genres and the history of poetry. They may not be useful in real life, but they were sure fun to learn about. And there are probably a thousand other things that I should have learned, but hey, I've got forever to learn those, right?
What's something you probably should have learned in college?
